Background
“Whether you drive a Bentley or a Hyundai, the road is the same.”
Lots of people claim to have said this first, and the one thing we’ll wager they all have in common is that they’ve never driven a Bentley.
We have nothing against a Hyundai, but we’ll probably take the Bentley, if it’s all the same to you.
The Brooklands was Bentley’s take on the Rolls Royce Silver Spirit.
During the decades that Rolls Royce and Bentley spent as a tightly intertwined couple, the two brands were each producing largely the same products.
However, the Bentleys always followed a more sporting road, whereas the Rolls Royces were more likely to be driven by chauffeurs.
The platform on which the Brooklands was based made its debut in 1980, as the basis for the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit (or long-wheelbase Silver Spur) and Bentley Mulsanne.
Named after the circuit (the world’s first purpose-built motor racing track) where Bentley had proven itself a supremely capable marque in the years before its affiliation with Rolls-Royce, the Brooklands succeeded the Eight and the Mulsanne.
Mechanically, the Bentley Brooklands had much in common with other Rolls-Royce/Bentley models that shared a common platform.
The familiar Rolls Royce V8, by now displacing 6.75-litres, started life in the early 1960s. The engine featured wet, cast-iron cylinder liners, but the twin SU carburettors were by now replaced with Bosch fuel injection and ignition management.
Four-wheel disc brakes and all-independent suspension were used to give the two-and-a-half tonne Bentley manageable driving characteristics. The suspension was self-levelling, and featured an automatic ride control system.
The interior and exterior were traditionally opulent, with leather and wood covering nearly every visible surface.
A full complement of neatly inset gauges and an automatic transmission shift lever located in the centre console (instead of on the steering column) hint at the Bentley's driver-focussed DNA.
There are, relatively speaking, quite a lot of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys on the road with the same basic look as the Brooklands, since the body design was used on so many different models.
But the Brooklands itself is really quite exclusive, with just 1,380 produced, including 172 long-wheelbase models.
