Background
By the end of the 1970s, Bentleys accounted for a mere 3% of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars' production, clearly a situation that could not be tolerated if the once-famous marque was to avoid extinction.
The solution was to seek to re-establish Bentley's credentials as the purveyor of high-performance luxury cars, and in a move calculated to evoke memories of the company's glorious past achievements at Le Mans, the name 'Mulsanne' was chosen for the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit's counterpart. This strategy would succeed brilliantly.
Launched at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1982, the Mulsanne Turbo provoked a rash of headlines in the motoring press hailing the return of the 'Blower Bentley' - the 'Silent Sports Car' was back.
Bentley's 1980s resurgence had previously relied exclusively on models whose basic architecture was shared with other Rolls-Royce products, but on display at Geneva in 1985 was 'Project 90': a mocked-up coupé, styled by Messrs John Heffernan and Ken Greenley, which was intended to gauge public response to the idea of a high-performance car unique to Bentley.
When the real thing - the Bentley Continental R - was unveiled six years later, the waiting crowd burst into spontaneous applause. Again the work of Heffernan and Greenley, the Continental R benefited from computer-aided design and wind tunnel testing in the devising of its sleekly streamlined shape.
Despite the need to incorporate non-traditional features such as doors recessed into the roof, the result looked every bit a Bentley, albeit one restated for the 1990s. Also new was the gearbox: a four-speed automatic with 'overdrive' top ratio, but the main focus of interest was the newcomer's performance.
Needless to say, this was outstanding, the combination of the Turbo R engine in the new wind-cheating shape cutting the 0-97km/h time to 6.2 seconds and boosting top speed to in excess of 241km/h.
