Bentley Brooklands is the name of two distinct models produced by British automobile manufacturer

Bentley Motors Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded as Bentley Motors Limited by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, Nort ...

. The first Brooklands was a full-size luxury saloon, launched in 1992 to replace the Bentley Mulsanne and in turn succeeded by the

Bentley Arnage The Bentley Arnage is a full-size luxury car manufactured and marketed by Bentley Motors in Crewe, England, from 1998 to 2009. The Arnage and its Rolls-Royce-branded sibling, the Silver Seraph, were introduced in the spring of 1998. They were ...

in 1998. Bentley resurrected the nameplate in 2007 with the Brooklands Coupé, a 2-door, 4-seater

hardtop A hardtop is a rigid form of automobile roof, which for modern cars is typically constructed from metal. A hardtop roof can be either fixed (i.e. not removable), detachable for separate storing or retractable within the vehicle itself. The ...

coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

version of the

Bentley Azure The Bentley Azure is a four-seater convertible grand tourer produced by British automobile manufacturer Bentley Motors. The first version debuted in 1995 on the Bentley Continental R platform and was made until 2003. After a three-year break, ...

. It was made between 2008 and 2011 in limited numbers. These cars were named after

Brooklands Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields ...

, a banked race track in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...

, where Bentley obtained some of its greatest triumphs in the 1920s and 1930s.

Brooklands (1992–1998)

The Bentley Brooklands was introduced in 1992 as a replacement for the Bentley Mulsanne S and

Bentley Eight The Eight was Bentley's "entry-level" offering from 1984 until 1992. Distinguished mainly by a wire-mesh grille radiator instead of vertical slats, the Eight also had somewhat less equipment than the similar Mulsanne on which it was based. This ...

models. It was intended as a slightly less expensive alternative to the

Bentley Turbo R The Bentley Turbo R is a high-performance automobile which was produced by Bentley Motors Limited from 1985 to 1999. The "R" stood for "roadholding", to set it apart from its predecessor. It initially inherited the turbocharged engine from the ...

, featuring the same styling, underpinnings and the Rolls-Royce 6.75-litre

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...

, but initially without the more powerful model's turbocharger. A turbocharged version appeared in 1996. The Brooklands continued

Bentley Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded as Bentley Motors Limited by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, Nort ...

's relatively angular design theme, which was also used on contemporary Rolls-Royce vehicles, throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. The exterior design featured the classic Bentley waterfall grille as well as dual headlights with wraparound parking lights. As in many Bentley and

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

vehicles, the Brooklands also featured the trademark descending bootlid and chrome B-pillars. 1993 Bentley Brooklands rear

The interior remained relatively unchanged from previous Bentley models, with more curvaceous design elements surrounding the leather-wrapped centre console. The

steering wheel A steering wheel (also called a driving wheel (UK), a hand wheel, or simply wheel) is a type of steering control in vehicles. Steering wheels are used in most modern land vehicles, including all mass-production automobiles, buses, light an ...

and interior door panels remained largely unchanged; the major change arrived in the form of relocating the gear selector to the centre console - for decades the standard practice among R-R and Bentley models utilised a steering column mounted selector. The interior continued to be surrounded by ample woodgrain which featured engraved, lighter-colored outlines on the door panels. In the U.S., prices for the Brooklands started at around $156,500.

Specifications

The 1992–1997 Brooklands was driven by a 6.75-litre

with a four-speed

automatic transmission An automatic transmission (sometimes abbreviated to auto or AT) is a multi-speed transmission used in internal combustion engine-based motor vehicles that does not require any input from the driver to change forward gears under normal driving ...

. The vehicle was

rear-wheel drive Rear-wheel drive (RWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the rear wheels only. Until the late 20th century, rear-wheel drive was the most common configuration for cars. Most rear-wheel ...

, and featured independent front and rear suspension. While not as large as some other ultra-luxury cars, the Brooklands remained quite large with an overall length of and

wheelbase In both road and rail vehicles, the wheelbase is the horizontal distance between the centers of the front and rear wheels. For road vehicles with more than two axles (e.g. some trucks), the wheelbase is the distance between the steering (fron ...

of ( and respectively in SWB trim).

1996 update

In autumn of 1996 Brooklands received an update in a form of light-pressure turbo, boosting power output to 300 bhp.

Brooklands R

In 1998, there also was a Brooklands R derivative available, with suspension upgrade borrowed from Turbo R model and with a light-pressure turbo, that should be seen as a replacement for standard Brooklands. Cars were badged as 'Brooklands R'.

Brooklands Coupé (2008–2011)

The Bentley Brooklands Coupé is a fixed-head version of the

(itself related to the

), featuring a two-door, four-seater pillarless hardtop

body, eliminating the

B-pillar The pillars on a car with permanent roof body style (such as four-door Sedan (automobile), sedans) are the vertical or nearly vertical supports of its window area or Greenhouse (automotive), greenhouse—designated respectively as the ''A, B, ...

s. It was unveiled at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show, to be built for the 2008 model year. As a hand-assembled car made in very small numbers, employing traditional coach-building techniques and craftsmanship skills in wood and leather, the Brooklands Coupé was the true successor to the discontinued

Bentley Continental R The Bentley Continental R is a luxury coupé manufactured by British automobile manufacturer Bentley Motors from 1991 to 2003. It was the first Bentley to feature a body not shared with a Rolls-Royce model since the 1965 S3 Continental and w ...

and T. Planned lifetime production was limited at 550 cars, and deliveries started in the first half of 2008.

Specifications

The Brooklands is powered by a 6.75-litre '' Bentley L Series''

twin-turbocharged Twin-turbo (not to be confused with a twincharger setup, which is a combination of a supercharger and a turbocharger) refers to an engine in which two turbochargers work in tandem to compress the intake fuel/air mixture (or intake air, in the case ...

OHV An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

, producing at 4,000 rpm and at 3,250 rpm, at the time the highest

torque In physics and mechanics, torque is the rotational equivalent of linear force. It is also referred to as the moment of force (also abbreviated to moment). It represents the capability of a force to produce change in the rotational motion of th ...

ever developed by a production petrol V8 engine. The engine was linked to a reinforced 6-speed ZF

torque converter A torque converter is a type of fluid coupling that transfers rotating power from a prime mover, like an internal combustion engine, to a rotating driven load. In a vehicle with an automatic transmission, the torque converter connects the p ...

automatic, with a

Tiptronic The modern usage of the automotive term manumatic denotes an automatic transmission that allows the driver to select a specific gear, typically using paddle-shifters, steering wheel-mounted push-buttons, or "+" and "-" controls on the gear select ...

manual gear selection function. A Carbon fibre-reinforced Silicon Carbide (C/SiC) ceramic composite braking system with 14-inch SGL Carbon brake discs was optional, with 20-inch wheels only.

Performance

* : 5.0 seconds * : 5.3 seconds * Top speed: * : 11.7 seconds

References

External links

Bentley Motors official international portal

Bentley Brooklands Image Gallery
{{Bentley timeline 1998 to date

Flagship vehicles Full-size vehicles Grand tourers Coupés Sedans Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 1992 2010s cars