2009 Bentley Brooklands Coupé

The Bentley Brooklands Coupé is certainly one of the most bougie production automobiles of the current century, although referring to this largely handbuilt 1-of-550 monster coupe as a "production" car is stretching the definition of the word until it makes appalling creaking and groaning noises of the sort you would likely never hear behind the wheel of this luxobullet.

Made by literally welding a fixed roof to a Bentley Azure convertible by hand, the Brooklands Coupé is propelled by the ultimate iteration of the old Rolls Royce pushrod V-8, transformed by a brace of intercooled turbos into a 6.75L beast pumping out 535 SAE net horsepower and a tyre-melting (if you defeat the traction control) 774 lb-ft of torque, which Bentley pointed out was the most ever from a gasoline-fueled V-8 auto engine.

Tested by Car and Driver as though it were just some plebeian car, rather than an automobile, the big Bentley launched itself to sixty in five seconds flat and torched the quarter in 13.3, acceleration numbers made all the more impressive by the fact that this thing weighs every bit of three tons once the driver's climbed aboard.

All this power and exclusivity came with a base price of $348, 085, but it didn't take much playing around with options...like the nearly $30k carbon-ceramic brakes...to shove the bill over $400 grand.

The upper photo was snapped in October of 2020 using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens, while the lower was taken in March of 2023 with an Olympus E-5 and Zuiko Digital 12-60mm f/2.8-4 zoom.