• Mulsanne comes to the end of production after more than a decade
• Socially-distanced colleague celebrations around final cars
• Unique ‘6.75 Edition’ rounds off the summit of automotive luxury
After 10 years and 7300 examples produced, Bentley's flagship luxury sedan the Mulsanne has reached the end of its production cycle. The Flying Spur will take the stop step in the carmaker's line up.
Each model was handcrafted at Bentley’s home in Crewe, Cheshire. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the usual end-of-production celebrations were limited to the craftsman posing for socially-distanced photographs with the final cars.
The penultimate Mulsanne Speed ‘6.75 Edition by Mulliner’ finished in Rose Gold over Tungsten pictured is heading to a US customer. And the company says final Mulsanne's future home remains a closely guarded secret.
The 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.
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"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", Bentley Chairman and Chief Executive, Adrian Hallmark said.
Remarkable numbers
Over the course of the Mulsanne's life cycle over 700 people have invested close to three million hours crafting the ultra-luxury sedan. The Mulsannes' bodies required approximately 42 million spot welds, and stitching the leather interiors took more than a million hours.
To get the cars gleaming almost 90 000 hours have been spent polishing the four-door luxo-barges and that's before a total of over four million individual quality checkpoints.
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6.75 Edition by Mulliner
In 2020, the final series production cars form the unique '6.75 Edition by Mulliner' signifying the end of Mulsanne’s reign. Taking its name from the 6.75-litre engine, which this year also came to the end of production after more than 60 years, the '6.75 Edition' is limited to only 30 examples.
Tributes to the car's name include the interior 'organ stop' ventilation controls are replaced by designs capped by miniature versions of the engine oil cap. The faces of the clock and minor gauges feature schematic cutaway drawings of the engine itself.
Dark tint treatments to the Flying B bonnet mascot, Mulliner Serenity radiator grille and exhaust finishers make it that much more special to look at.
Homage to the motor is paid under the bonnet with the engine intake manifold finished in black in lieu of the traditional silver, and the Engine Number Plaque – traditionally signed by the craftsman that built the engine – has been signed by Adrian Hallmark himself.
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