Previews
Garlits would approve: Bentley builds a burled, consummately British burnout machine.
The Arnage T’s traction control system is programmed such that, per Bentley, “You can drift the car with some wheelspin, but it never lets you get in any trouble.” That this statement it attached to a 5700-pound, nearly 18-foot-long cache of burl, Connolly leather and handcrafted pomp is reason enough to make us like it.
Bentley’s sales have increased six-fold in the last three years, due largely to the success of the new Continental, sold mostly to first-time Bentley buyers. “Old” Bentley buyers, however, are less interested in a 198-mph top speed and more interested in an ownership experience similar to that of their father and father’s father. The Arnage remains the classic Bentley saloon, available as a “standard” 450-hp R, long-wheelbase RL, or more-spirited, 500-hp T.
The T starts at $250,985, though if you throw in a champagne cooler, choose custom interior and exterior hues, and perhaps some factory grenade proofing, plan on fiddling with the number in the left-most column. If it helps paint the picture, where the average Continental buyer possesses a net worth of $3 million, the average Arnage buyer is worth some $30 million, and a popular option in the Queen’s country are sill plates emblazoned with the family crest.
Getting along in years
The nearly decade-old platform does show its age, especially when you hop from the T into the ultra-modern and capable Continental GT, but regardless Bentley will sell each and every example it builds. An all-new Arnage is coming sometime before 2010; we can assume it will have a stiffer chassis, brakes with shorter travel, more precise steering, and a better integrated electronics experience. But we hope the new car will still carry the old-world charm of the Viagra-fied Arnage T.
Nearly all Arnages are built to order. Bentley’s Mulliner coachwork division is able to handle just about any request, and the standard option list is so comprehensive that few duplicate cars are produced. Our T was swathed in quilted, rich brown leather; the interior is comely in a comforting way should your youth have been spent exploring drawing rooms, overstuffed chairs, and servants’ quarters of a Park Avenue or Mayfair residence. Think polished, knurled, burnished, and conditioned.
The huge, chromed aluminum dash vents, which rotate a full 360-degrees in their sockets, are of such mass that they could, in a pinch, be used as mortar rounds. Through these vents, the whoosh of conditioned air assumes three distinct tones for no good reason that we’re aware of other than whimsy, which is reason enough.
A single lot of wood is reserved for the book-matched veneer lining the interior of each Arnage; remaining pieces do not go into other cars, but are marked and placed in a giant humidor such that if repairs need to be made, the wood will match perfectly, otherwise an impossibility.
Performance and Craftsmanship
Nestled in the austere furnishings are a modern digital information screen, Bluetooth-capable phone system, digital HVAC system, and other expected hardware. It doesn’t matter what seat you land in the Arnage, they’re all first class. Our drive in the car finished with several hours of being lost and stuck in rush hour traffic; we could not have cared less how many hours we spent staring at brake lights, or whether we even made our flight home.
Afraid to fly?
Speaking of flight, the Arnage T might be the closest thing to a land-born Lear jet, where your passengers can sip Taittinger Comtes de Champagne from hand-cut crystal glasses while you haul all sorts of ass. The first time you exploit the T’s “power in reserve,” an understatement with 500 horsepower and nearly half that again in torque, you ask “damn, really?” Large displacement and a roller cam provide the torque backbone; the added fillip is provided by two modestly sized, quick-spooling Mitsubishi turbochargers. Thrust without the forced induction would be, per Rolls parlance, “sufficient”; with it, even our jaded right foot is satisfied. The 6.8-liter engine (6 ¾ if you indulge Bentley’s Britishness) has its roots in 1959, but all-aluminum construction makes it still relevant.
If you spring for an Arnage T, be sure your portfolio is heavy in oil extraction and petroleum interests. The term “fuel mileage” does not exist in the lexicon of Bentley buyers, and even with a generous 25 gallon tank, 10 miles per gallon from city or spirited driving makes pump visits frequent.
New for ’07 is a six-speed automatic ZF transmission, a welcome departure from the GM-sourced four-speed it replaces, which can operated in sport or manumatic mode. Disable traction control, mash the aluminum throttle pedal into lamb’s wool carpeting and 738 lb-ft of torque begets twin lanes of smoldering Pirelli until you lift. Leave traction control on and the T should sprint to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds; once you’ve set its heft in motion, acceleration is ardent and prosecutable speeds are reached quickly. Business clients with a fear of flying can be ferried to meetings at light-aircraft speeds, although we don’t relish the thought of attempting to arrest nearly three tons of luxury from its 179-mph top speed.
Three tons of fun
The T communicates its various mechanical going-ons with enthusiasm without intruding on the experience of luxury. An exhaust rumble worthy of 500 horsepower issues when the T is prodded, and expands with boost; just as fun is the sound of the blow-off valves recirculating pressurized air when the throttle snaps shut. Balance the car with the throttle through a long sweeper and the T snorts and burbles in reply.
Few cars communicate with as broad a vocabulary. With the big Germans firing continual volleys from their biggest horsepower cannons at each other, we’ve become used to huge, seamless, refined speed in luxury vehicles, but none deliver the goods with similarly involving, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang flair.
An unequal-length control arm suspension front and rear does an admirable job of making significant tonnage ride smoothly and hustle well. Depress the Sport button on the center console and the electronically controlled dampers firm noticeably, sharpening turn in and reducing body roll. We dispatched rolling, twisting two-lane roads far quicker than any vehicle that large (longer than a Chevy Tahoe and almost as heavy) ought to.
In our world of radical mechanization, few products of any complexity are assembled by hand. One Bentley craftsperson spends 12 hours stitching an Arnage steering wheel with a single piece of thread. Could it be done more quickly, and maybe more precisely by a machine? Perhaps. It’s the slightest deviation from true on a hand-laid piece of leather, however, that affirms you are helming the fruit of a skilled, willfully laborious process instead of another just appliance from another automated assembly line. Bespoke for exclusivity’s sake is so new money; the many prideful hands involved with each Arnage T help animate a machine of unique charm and unexpected character, however large the buy in.
BY JARED HOLSTEIN
caranddriver.com
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