1952 Bentley Mark VI

Launched in 1946, the Bentley Mark VI standard steel sports saloon represented a number of firsts for the company, as their first postwar luxury car, their first car with all-steel coachwork, and the first Bentley assembled entirely, from the bottom of the tires to the top of the roof, at the Rolls-Royce plant in Crewe.

 

Riding on a 120" wheelbase and weighing a bit over two tons, the Mark VI was initially powered by a 4.3L "F-head" engine, in which the intake valve was in the cylinder head, but the exhaust exited a sidevalve in the block.

In 1951 this motor was bored out to give a displacement of 4.5L. With a 6.4:1 compression ratio, a brace of SU carburetors, and dual exhausts, it put out... well, the manufacturer famously never reported horsepower as anything but "adequate".

A contemporary road test in The Autocar of a 4.5L car comparable to the 1952 model seen in the photos returned a zero-to-sixty acceleration of 15.2 seconds and a top speed of 100 miles per hour.

   

This one was photographed with a Panasonic GM1 and an M. Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens in July of 2019.

1999 Bentley Arnage Green Label

The Arnage and its Rolls-Royce sibling, the Silver Seraph, were the first all-new cars from the Vickers establishment in decades. As part of their updated image, they had their ancient pushrod motors replaced with 4.4L BMW V-8 powerplants.

These DOHC 32V mills were more efficient and powerful, especially the Cosworth-massaged twin-turbocharged variant in the Bentley, which thumped out 349 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque. The German magazine Auto Motor und Sport got a '98 Arnage to 100km/h in 7.3 seconds and to a top speed of 149mph.

Alas, the Green Labels are rare because Vickers was in the process of having its car brands carved off by the German automakers BMW and Volkswagen. BMW got Rolls-Royce while VW got Bentley, and it simply would not do to have a Volkswagen subsidiary buying motors from their rival in Bavaria, so the Red Label Arnage was launched with a refreshed 6.75L pushrod twin-turbo L-series V-8.

The one in the photos, which I think is in Dark Sapphire Pearl, was photographed with a Leica D-Lux 3 in February of 2017.

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.  

2020 Bentley Continental GTC V8

If you're a Boomer or a GenX'er, it's hard to believe that Bentleys have been running around on Volkswagen-designed chassis for two decades now, but here we are. The 2025 Continental marks the fourth generation of Bentley's racy coupe to ride on VW-group underpinnings.

The one in the picture (I believe that color is "Dragon Red") is a third generation Continental GTC V8, the generation that spanned the 2019-2024 model years.

The Continental GTC could be had with either the V-8 or W-12 motors, both of which packed a brace of intercooled turbos. The 4.0L DOHC 32V V-8, shared with numerous Audi, Porsche, and Lamborghini vehicles, was rated at 542 SAE net horsepower as installed in the Bentley coupes. Not bad for a motor whose roots date back to a normally-aspirated 247 bhp 3.6L V-8 used in late-'80s Audi luxury sedans.

The reinforcement required for the folding top adds considerably to the car's already-considerable heft, bringing the curb weight to an eye-watering 4,982 pounds. This being the entry-level droptop Bentley, it was priced at $222k, a nearly twenty thousand dollar savings over the W12.

It was photographed in June of 2022 using a Nikon D7100 and 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II zoom lens.