Category: Large Executive 
Price Range: £236,400 to £236,400
Captivating power delivery, exquisite and spacious interior, handles well.
Hugely expensive to buy and run, ride comfort merely adequate.
Probably the most characterful Bentley of the last half century. Better than we could have hoped.
It may not seem it, but it's been 10 years since Volkswagen bought Bentley - 10 years in which the Crewe factory has been transformed from the antediluvian (it started life building Merlin aero-engines) to a truly modern manufacturing facility; and 10 years in which the all-new Continental series of cars has been designed, engineered and built, transforming Bentley's fortunes, profits and production numbers. Five years ago barely 1,000 Bentleys were being made per year: last year just over 10,000 were assembled on the site. It has also, of course, won the Le Mans 24 hour race.
But in this era when most Bentleys are built more quickly and sold more cheaply than ever before, for a small number of die-hard traditionalists it is reassuring to know that some things at Bentley never change. Leather is still stitched by rows of ladies with sewing machines, woodworking skills are still handed down from parent to child. Walk about in Crewe and you'll not just see robots, lasers and computers - you'll see chisels, lathes and hammers too. And, for just a few very monied individuals, a small number of old school Bentleys are still painstakingly constructed over a period of several months. This, the Bentley Brooklands, is the newest and best of the lot.
It is, of course, a hard-top Azure or, put it another way, an Arnage coupe: but that does not stop this £230,000 behemoth having a character all of its own. And that's because Bentley has decided that the Brooklands should not merely widen the appeal of the Arnage-based cars, it should extend it, too. And to look upon it as an Azure with a roof is to miss its point entirely.
For while the Azure has a 450bhp version of Bentley's venerable but still more than game 6.75-litre turbo V8 motor, the Brooklands comes with a rather more convincing 530bhp. Its suspension is 50-60% stiffer, its steering has been revalved for a more sporting feel and, if you don't mind forking out a further £19,000, you can equip your Brooklands with not only the largest brakes offered on any road car, but ones that are made out of carbon ceramic.
But not for long: in a move that seemed unnecessarily cautious at the time, when Bentley announced the Brooklands almost exactly a year ago, it said that only 550 would ever be built. And now, without a single customer having so much as squirted one up the road, over 500 are already sold. No wonder Bentley's staff appeared to be kicking themselves at its launch. Even so, so glacial is the rate at which they will be built, it will take Bentley nearly three years to build the same number of cars that it takes a decent modern plant to knock out in a day.
