After more than a decade in production, the final example of the Mulsanne has been completed, signifying the end of an illustrious and extraordinary lifespan. Over 7,300 examples – all handcrafted at Bentley’s home in Crewe, Cheshire – have embodied Bentley’s ability to produce the ultimate luxury sedan.
With typical end-of-production celebrations curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Bentley Colleagues gathered for socially-distanced photographs with the final cars, and marked the departure of Mulsanne by sharing their thoughts of the outgoing Bentley flagship on camera. Bentley is today releasing both this Colleague film and a suite of imagery of the penultimate customer car – a Mulsanne Speed ‘6.75 Edition by Mulliner’ finished in Rose Gold over Tungsten, heading to a lucky customer in the USA. One extremely special, final Mulsanne remains behind the penultimate car – however, its future home remains a closely guarded secret.
Mulsanne’s lineage can be traced back through Bentley’s history, from the original 8 Litre of 1930 – the last car designed and developed by W.O. Bentley himself – as the most luxurious, coach built Bentley of its time.
Bentley Chairman and Chief Executive, Adrian Hallmark, comments: “The Mulsanne is the culmination of all that we at Bentley have learnt during our first 100 years in producing the finest luxury cars in the world. As the flagship of our model range for over a decade, the Mulsanne has firmly solidified its place in the history of Bentley as nothing less than a true icon. I am immensely proud of the hundreds of designers, engineers and craftspeople that brought the Mulsanne to life over the last ten years. Now, as we begin Bentley’s journey to define the future of sustainable luxury mobility through our Beyond100 strategy, the role of Bentley flagship is passed to the new Flying Spur.”
In the last 11 years, over 700 people have invested nearly three million hours crafting Bentley’s ultra-luxury sedan. Producing the Mulsanne bodies required approximately 42 million spot welds, and creating the sumptuous leather interiors took more than a million hours alone. Nearly 90,000 hours have been spent polishing cars, before a total of over four million individual quality checkpoints. Mulsanne has been a labour of love.
