What is it?
It is what was, at the time of its launch in 1991, the first all-new-bodied Bentley coupe since the R-Type of 1952 and the first Bentley that didn't share its bodywork with a (whisper this) Rolls-Royce of some sort. It was also, purportedly, the most expensive new car in the world, back in its day, costing in the region of £230,000. It's called the Continental R and this one is a Mulliner-bodied Final Series. From a total production run of 1,548 Continental R models, there were 158 Mulliner editions, 44 Le Mans Series... and just 11 Final Series cars. That means C1 BML is a very special car, and not just because it belongs to Bentley's own private Heritage fleet and has covered a mere 5,138 miles during its 17-year time on the Earth.
The Final Series used an uprated version of the long-serving L-Series six-and-three-quarter-litre V8 engine, bumped up to 426hp by a turbocharger when most other examples of the Conti R ran between 330- and 390hp. It's not so much the L410 eight-pot's power that draws your eye, though, but the goliath 881Nm of torque, which equates to a nice, round 650lb ft in Bentley's preferred Imperial measurements (on which note, 426hp - which is a PS number - was 420bhp in 'old power money'). As a Final Series, it also enjoyed a host of detail changes, including branded brake callipers and wide wheel arches stretched over 18-inch five-spoke alloys on the outside, and a turbo boost gauge, chromed bezels for the dials, a large red starter button (more on this in a moment), black lacquer trim furnishings and winged Bentley emblems in the waistrails inside.
Never mind the detail updates, have a gander at the Conti R's imperious form. What a fabulous-looking car this thing is. It's not exactly a compact and delicate coupe, measuring a whopping 5,342mm from tip to tail and standing more than two metres wide on the road; Bentley did a shorter-wheelbase (by 102mm, measuring 2,959mm instead of 3,061mm) Continental T, which was based on the Continental R and supposed to be the sportier vehicle to drive, but as you're still talking a five-metre-plus-long machine, it's fair to say this era of Continental is no flyweight, agile ballerina in any format. Nevertheless, the Final Series is graceful, that flowing shoulder-line running the full length of the car and gently arching itself over the wheel housings being a particular highlight, but we're also big fans of the clean expanses of metal, the grandiose proportions that never make the car look heavy (even though it is, at 2,420kg), the quad headlights framing the giant grille (take note, BMW, this is how you do big radiator intakes without everyone in a 40-mile radius instantly feeling queasy) and the single big-bore exhaust at the back.
Dropping into the Conti R Final Series' interior, while this might be a 2003 vehicle underneath the private number plates and the minimal-mileage Bentley Heritage fleet status, its cabin architecture is emphatically rooted in the 20th century. And we wouldn't even say the 1990s and the gestation of the Continental R line, either, because it looks even older than that. There's a huge bank of dials towering up the centre stack, a rather tacky-looking but brilliantly out-of-kilter Alpine head unit is studded into the middle of the console, some of the buttons are hidden in delightfully arcane places (the mirror switches are on the upright underneath the central armrest which faces the front of the car), the roof-lining is made of longitudinally stitched leather and that aforementioned red starter button? It's not red. It's that unmarked silver item in between all the gauges. Took us a while to even get the Continental R's mighty 6.75-litre motor turned over as a result, because we hadn't been told where the starter was... ahem.
Why are you driving it?
It was another of the lovely old cars assembled at the Bentley Toy Box event to showcase the Crewe company's storied history, but it was also one of the few cars in attendance powered by the fabled L-Series V8 and the chance to drive it came a little while after sampling the same engine from the very end of its 61-year service period in the prow of the majestic Mulsanne Speed. So, two ways to say a fond farewell to the 6¾, then, and one from the 'old' Bentley guard while the other was from the 'new'; forming a useful bit of 'compare and contrast'.
Is it any good these days?
It's surprisingly capable, considering you set your preconceptions beforehand and think that it took VW-owned Bentley three attempts to get the Continental GT just right. As the Continental R is kind of loosely related to the stonking old Turbo R saloon, which was never known for its rapier responses and thrilling chassis, you really don't think a 2.4-tonne coupe with its basis in the early 1990s is going to be any great shakes in the corners.
And while there are plenty of things counting against the Continental R - such as its slow, heavy steering, the fact it feels physically huge when you're sat in it and (accordingly) the distant corners of the car are hard to spot, the unavoidable truth that it has four gears and just 4,500rpm to play with in each of them, and that the Bentley's suspension is on the soft side of things even going by the supple standards of the early 2000s - there's a lot to love too. It actually grips pretty tenaciously for such a big, hefty thing on modest 18s and while the steering ain't quick, it sure is faithful and informative. As, indeed, is the whole chassis of the car. It tells you where the limits of adhesion and balance are, mainly through the pronounced movements of the handsome bodywork; this is where forgiving suspension can genuinely work to a driver's advantage, especially when you're controlling a larger vehicle such as the Conti R. The transfer of (considerable) weight is conveyed to the driver with startling clarity and precision here.
Naturally, like almost any Bentley pre-2017, its preferred modus operandi is to be driven well within itself, woofling around on its simply gigantic reserves of low-end grunt and never surpassing anything as unseemly as 2,500rpm. And then the Continental R is just glorious. A Bentley stuffed with character, incontrovertibly British in its stateliness of build and eloquence of the mechanicals, but yet beguiling enough to feel like something considerably more wonderful than a cheap Turbo R picked up at a remote county auction house (and there's nothing wrong with a Turbo R, mind). And then, the crowning glory in the Continental R Final Series' locker is that 6.75 V8. God, it might not be a very advanced engine, but it is utterly magnificent. The torque of it, the theatrical way in which it takes its time to accumulate its monumental reserves and then dole them out at the rear wheels, the punchy speed that it can serve up as a result; it's a magical experience driving a Continental R. Even if you're just idling along at low revs and low speed in fourth, it's a true privilege to be sitting at the Final Series' enormous four-spoke wheel.
Is it a genuine classic, or just some mildly interesting old biffer?
This would appear to be a nailed-on classic. Across a 12-year production run, Bentley made only a few more than 100 Continental R models on average per annum, and of the mere 1,548 vehicles which rolled out of the factory, a paltry 0.7 per cent of them were Final Series cars. So this is a hyper-rare sub-version of a pretty damned desirable machine anyway. Used prices remain resolutely robust, even higher-mileage early examples commanding £30,000 - and anything with less than 20,000 showing like this one is hovering around the six-figure mark. Yes, six figures; when you can pick up decent, serviceable Turbo R Bentleys for less than ten grand. Factor in that iconic L-Series V8 powerplant and the old-school charm that is dripping from the curvaceous form of the Continental R, and the net outcome is that we were really rather smitten with this one. As, we think, you would be too, if you seek one out as a leftfield classic that maybe isn't the most obvious choice for affluent car collectors the world over.
The numbers
Model tested: 2003 Bentley Continental R Mulliner Final Series
Price: when new in 2003, £230,000 (circa £366,385, inflation-adjusted for 2019); used examples anything from £30,000 to £100,000 today (all Continental R models)
Build period: 1991-2003
Build numbers: 1,548 (whole production run, of which 11 were Mulliner Final Series cars)
Engine: 6.75-litre turbocharged V8 petrol
Transmission: rear-wheel drive, four-speed GM 4L80-E automatic
Body style: two-door performance luxury coupe
Combined economy: 15.1mpg
Top speed: 170mph
0-62mph: 6.0 seconds
Power: 426hp at 4,000rpm
Torque: 881Nm at 2,200rpm
Weight: 2,420kg
