What's the news?
Hand-crafted in Crewe, in England, in a factory that once made Merlin engines for Spitfires, the Bentley Mulsanne is getting a major makeover for the 2016 model year and will make a stately debut at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show.
Bentley says that the entire front end of the car, from the a-posts forward, has been redesigned and although the overall shapes are very similar, you can see a new grille, new headlights (with the smaller outer-lights raised up a little) and re-profiled bumpers. The Mulsanne range now splits into three separate models too - Mulsanne, Mulsanne Speed and Mulsanne Extended Wheelbase.
In standard Mulsanne form (and as the Extended Wheelbase model) you'll get a 6.75-litre turbocharged V8 engine packing a not-inconsiderable 512hp and 1,020Nm of torque. No, that's not a typo - a thousand Newton-Metres. That's good enough for a most undignified 0-100km/h sprint of 5.1seconds and a top speed of 296km/h. We would remind you that this is a massive limousine that weighs more than some people's houses. Average fuel consumption, as if you care, is 19mpg and the Co2 emissions are a polar-bear-assassinating 342g/km.
But wait, there's more. How about the new Mulsanne Speed version? Following in the footsteps of the classic 1930s Speed Six and the more recent Continental GT Speed, the Mulsanne Speed is packing some serious V8 firepower. It's the same basic engine, but now with 537hp, 1,100Nm of torque (!) and 0-100km/h in 4.8 seconds, with a top speed on the naughty side of 300km/h. All of that is transmitted through a modified version of the standard Mulsanne's eight-speed ZF gearbox and it even comes with an 'S' mode for extra-sporty driving.
There's also a three-mode suspension that, rather wonderfully, has buttons for 'Sport', 'Comfort' and 'Bentley' modes. We'd just leave it in Bentley, probably...
The standard Mulsanne gets 20-inch wheels with an option to go for 21-inch alloys while the Speeds gets 21-inch wheels as standard.
In the Extended Wheelbase, there's an extra 250mm behind the front seats, making for a positive acreage of legroom, which Bentley has capitalised upon by fitting airline-style seats which can, of course, tilt, slide, recline, massage, heat, cool and probably do your tax returns. Not that you pay much tax if you drive around in the back of a Mulsanne...
Each Mulsanne takes at least 400-hours to make, and Bentley points out that each car really is hand made - the seam between the roof and the rear of the car is actually finished and brazed by hand so that the join is "imperceptible to the eye."
Inside you can choose from fluted or quilted leather in 24 different standard colours (and presumably any colour you like if your cheque book is hefty enough), and there's a new infotainment system with an eight-inch touch screen and a 60GB hard drive for endless hours of Elgar. Those new lights have an auto high-beam function, as well as a Town, Country and Motorway setting for the beam spread. Back seat passengers get to play with a Bentley-branded Android tablet that controls many of the rear-cabin functions, while Bentley claims that overall cabin noise has been reduced by 4dBA.
Wolfgang Dürheimer, chairman and chief executive of Bentley Motors, comments: "The Mulsanne is the epitome of Bentley's DNA - exquisite, individual and powerful. It defines luxury in the automotive world and offers a uniquely Bentley blend of luxury and performance.
"The three distinct handcrafted models now available each offer customers something different. The Mulsanne, with its understated elegance and sporting purpose, remains the consummate luxury limousine; the Mulsanne Speed is the pinnacle of luxury and performance thanks to its immense power, torque and refinement; and now the Mulsanne Extended Wheelbase - with its extraordinary airline-style seats and rear-passenger bias - becomes the new benchmark in automotive comfort."
First deliveries to customers will start this summer.