Bye-bye Bentley Mulsanne – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

Yet there is one car whose imminent arrival not even the most spoiled, gnarled, cynical and jaded hack could take for granted – not even me. I talk of the Bentley Mulsanne.

And I talk of it because it will shortly be no more. After, by Bentley saloon standards, a relatively short ten year lifespan, production will end for its flagship saloon. Its replacement, if it comes at all, will be a very different beast because not only is it years away, when it comes it will in all likelihood be powered by electricity alone.

And sadly the Mulsanne is almost certainly dying before its natural lifespan was spent. The death warrant was the latest round of emissions regulations which are so tough, the V8 beneath that elegant bonnet would need to be entirely redesigned before it could comply, and with production numbers best measured in hundreds than thousands, sales would never justify the investment.

Ah yes, the V8. That V8, conceived in 1952, put into production in 1959 an until the last one was completed earlier this week, the oldest engine still in production. And yes I know GM still makes its small block and Ford its Windsor V8, but they don’t slot them into new cars any more.

Many people, myself among them I’m ashamed to say, thought this engine was either a copy of or a version of an American engine. After all it’s a V8, has an enormous capacity and was introduced just a year before the similarly all aluminium Buick V8 that would soon be adopted by Rover. But it’s not: this is as much a Rolls-Royce engine as a Merlin and, lest we forget, it was David Plastow’s decision to turbocharge it and in 1982 create a proper Bentley that saved the brand from certain death.

But really I’m here to talk about the Mulsanne, because in the 32 years I’ve been doing this job, I never drove a car this engine suited more. Other close candidates would be the Turbo RT, Continental T, and Brooklands coupe.

Together, the Mulsanne and the V8 were everything I wanted a modern Bentley to be, and if that meant neither was particularly modern I was fine with that. In ‘Speed’ configuration, the most developed 544PS, a positively indolent output for a twin-turbo engine displacing 6.75-litres, but power was never what this engine has been about. The only figure that matters was its 1,100Nm of torque, or 810lb ft if you prefer it the other way. And the only reason it didn’t have more than that was that it would melt its gearbox if it did.

But that was enough to make you wonder whether it needed a transmission at all. Direct drive straight through the rear axle would be such an elegant solution. My favourite thing in a Mulsanne was to lock it in a high ratio – fifth or sixth – and then dispatch a long sweeping road without ever using more than 2,500rpm or being subjected to anything as offensive as a gearchange. And I was always amazed by how fast it could still go in such conditions.

Which is the other thing people don’t appreciate about the Mulsanne: despite its near 2.7 tonne mass, enormous wheelbase and pillowy spring rates, it really handles, at least in fast corners. And that’s another thing I’m really going to miss.

But most of all it’s just being in the thing. Years ago I flew in from a long hard trip and for some reason that has long escaped me, I had a Mulsanne in the long term car park. I can’t remember where I’d been or what I’d driven when I got there, but I recall in finest detail finding it at Gatwick in the middle of the night, its boot stuck out a couple of feet from its too small parking place, a light frost on its roof and realising that despite the fact I lived three hours away, I was already home.

So I hope Bentley will still make cars such as this. Cars with doors like bank vaults, wood that looks like great slabs of tree and every single component honed to the finest detail by master crafts men and women for whom nothing but the best will do. It takes around 375 hours to make a Mulsanne, which is around 37.5 times longer than it takes to make a family hatchback. I’m really going to miss it.