Bentley Mulsanne
Why 2.9: Bentley's own flagship rather than a rebodied Volkswagen product: the L-series 6.75-litre V8, in production since 1959 and here making 1,020 Nm from 1,750 rpm, in a car built and largely hand-finished at Crewe. It ended in 2020 and took the engine with it.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The L-series V8 dates to 1959 and still thrums with a low, guttural bass under acceleration that nothing modern reproduces. But it stops at 4,500 rpm and Crewe's double glazing keeps the tailpipes politely distant. Charming, and heard as if from the next room.
8-cylinder · turbocharged · 4,500 rpm redline · rated 5.8 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €262k (2011) → €85k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Two ISOFIX positions on the outer rear seats, the outer pair being the ones the standard covers.
The rear anchors are the supported route — the manual points child seats there, and front-passenger ISOFIX is the exception rather than the rule. A belt-mounted seat up front needs the airbag off, and cars with a rear row don't always fit a deactivation switch, precisely because the rear seats exist.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
The Mulsanne was Bentley's first in-house flagship since 1930 and it lasted ten years against a Rolls-Royce Phantom that outsold it comfortably. Roughly 7,300 were built. What happened to them afterwards is the story: a car that cost $285,000 in 2011 was worth under $100,000 within eight years, one of the steepest depreciation curves of any modern luxury saloon, and the running costs on a 2.7-tonne hand-built Bentley are what keep the price there. The consequence is a fleet that barely moves. Annual mileage on the used market is routinely under 3,000, first owners were chauffeur-driven or occasional-use, and the second owners who bought at a fifth of list are frequently the ones who discovered why. Values have finally started to firm as the last of the 6.75-litre cars, which is the beginning of a collector interest rather than a speculative one — but a Mulsanne is bought as an object and stored as one, and the miles factor is the honest way to say that.