Bentley Continentals: style, speed and luxury

By Martin Buckley

| 1 Jul 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Bentley Continentals: style, speed and luxury

The mass-produced motor car had only just reached semi-maturity in 1952, after its development was stalled by the Second World War.

The gulf in ability between your humble family saloon and the more costly, handbuilt automobile was therefore appropriately huge.

But even taking this into account, the figures generated by the first fastback Bentley Continental were astonishing.

Its 124mph top speed made it the fastest true four-seater available, and that was combined with through-the-gears pace not approached by any other closed car of the day.

The Bentley R-type Continental’s fabulous, flowing shape was the work of HJ Mulliner

Almost unbelievably, it was able to top 100mph in third; when the spellbound road-testers from The Autocar drove the prototype in 1952, they found they had to extend their usual tabulation figures, so powerfully was the acceleration maintained in the Bentley’s long top ratio.

Not least among the Bentley Continental’s magic numbers was its price: at just less than £5000, here was the most expensive production car in the world, at first built only for export in those still dollar-hungry austerity years.

Maybe it was worth the money, though, because truly this was the best car on the market, its refinement impossible to express in figures.

Here we plot Crewe’s attempts to maintain the Continental’s reputation while keeping its customers satisfied – two goals that should have been mutually beneficial, but were sometimes at odds with each other.

‘Less is more’ was not a philosophy easily sold to the typical Bentley buyer.

The famous ‘Flying B’ badge on the Bentley R-type Continental

The R-type Continental had its roots in a pre-war plan to build a faster two-door Bentley called Corniche with its own sportier identity.

Hitler scuppered that idea, but a short series of rather severe-looking Farina-bodied MkVI Bentley coupés produced after the war showed that the appetite for such a car remained.

Rolls-Royce engineers, while pathologically conservative, fully understood that the route to really high cruising speeds lay in combining a large engine, a clean, aerodynamic shape – with a more efficient front end than the matronly Standard Steel R-type, thanks to a lower scuttle – and really long overall gearing.

There was no question of building a hot rod.

More power – a still-whispering 137bhp at the rear wheels – was extracted from the F-head straight-six by raising the compression and fitting a more efficient, larger-bore exhaust.

The Bentley R-type Continental’s simple but elegant interior – note the right-hand gearchange

Inside the Rolls-Royce wind tunnel, housed at the Hucknall Flight Establishment in Nottinghamshire, Ivan Everden, director of the experimental department, found that this was enough to propel 22sq ft of exquisitely crafted frontal area through the air at 120mph – proof indeed that true elegance was not necessarily the enemy of efficiency.

Of the 208 R-type Continental chassis that were laid down at Crewe, 193 were built to this design, although demands for more luxurious seats, heavier ‘export’ bumpers and automatic transmission threatened to blunt performance until a bigger 4887cc engine was specified.

Ivor Gordon of Frank Dale & Stepsons has owned KWT 7 for more than 40 years and will never be parted from it.

It is easy to see why. The shape alone – HJ Mulliner’s all-aluminium body, hung on a lightweight Reynolds Metals alloy frame – makes this one of the most desirable cars of any era, and among the most alluring possessions you could ever hope to own.

Bentley R-type Continental’s refined ‘six’ grew from 4566cc to 4887cc in 1954

Bereft of superfluous ornamentation, there is something elemental about the way the front wing line flows through the door and pinches the car in the middle; something breathtaking about the way the tail sweeps between the stabilising fins.

Inside, the early-type skinny front seats are perfectly comfortable and a boon to rear legroom (the R-type Continental has more space in the back for knees than any of the later cars), while the clean and simple fascia’s light veneers are echoed around the window frames.

Its steering is light and direct once you’re under way, its right-handed gearchange buttery-smooth.

This car is a more physical experience to drive than its later siblings, yet there is an air of confidence, refinement and sheer command about it that must have made it the finest means of covering long distances in the 1950s.

This Bentley S1 Continental is a highly prized Park Ward convertible

After the R-type, the classic era of the Bentley Continental runs through to 1966 and the last of the S3s, embracing some of the most graceful two-door coachbuilt bodywork ever made, although it is unlikely that any of them ever saw the inside of a wind tunnel.

The R-type had whetted customers’ appetites for a personal luxury Bentley that was sufficiently different from the Standard Steel car to justify a higher price.

For the S1 Continental, HJ Mulliner continued with an updated fastback that featured a higher line to the front wings.

Perhaps surprisingly, it complemented that with a four-door Continental called the Flying Spur with a six-light roof design, although there were a few ‘blind rear-quarter’ four-lights, too.

If you include the 20 James Young bodies and six Hooper ones, the S1 Continental formed the basis for seven body styles.

The Bentley S1 Continental was available with power assistance, but this convertible does without

Park Ward produced six cars on the R-type Continental chassis, but with the introduction of the S1 in 1955 its contribution to the story becomes much more significant.

It adapted its fixed- and drophead-coupé styles to the slightly longer S-series chassis, which in Continental guise now featured a higher compression ratio to account for improving fuel supplies, along with bigger carburettors and inlet valves plus a longer 2.92:1 final drive.

From 1957 the Continental came only with automatic transmission (there were very few manuals anyway) and the featured Park Ward convertible in deep, rich Garnet is one of them, complete with vestigial rear fins and an easily manipulated manual hood.

Open skies above add another dimension of glamour to Continental motoring, and Giles Crickmay from Frank Dale tells me that these S1 convertibles are so sought-after that they sell almost before they are advertised.

The Bentley S2 Continental came in a range of body styles – this is the HJ Mulliner two-door

The plump, tan leather seats give a good view of all four corners of a vehicle that is without doubt long but not especially wide.

The interior woodwork is a masterpiece of the cabinetmaker’s art, with beautifully calibrated instruments and the rev counter that was a Continental trademark, redlined at a mere 4500rpm.

Not that you need many revs to move quickly in this car.

Even with the automatic gearbox, the acceleration is still lusty but almost silent and very smooth.

At first, the lack of power assistance for the steering is somehow at odds with the automatic transmission, but, again, once under way you don’t really miss it.

The Bentley S2 Continental’s 6230cc V8 replaced the old ‘six’

With the coming of the 6.3-litre V8 engine in 1959, Crewe was able to give Continental customers more of what they wanted in terms of luxury without sacrificing performance.

The V8 torque was perfectly matched to the automatic transmission, and the coachbuilders were free to develop ever more delightful shapes, with Rolls-Royce’s chief stylist John Blatchley acting as the final arbiter of taste.

Beneath the skin, the classic Cloud II/S2 chassis still featured a live rear axle and drum brakes.

Continental specification amounted to relatively few mechanical differences beyond bigger brakes and the higher-ratio rear axle.

Power steering was standard for the Bentley S2 Continental

HJ Mulliner continued with its Flying Spur four-door Continental alongside a two-door notchback shape that replaced its famous fastback.

Seen here in dark blue, this is one of my favourites, with wraparound front and rear windows on a squat roofline.

I love its delicate roof pillars, its assertive bumper overriders and its pencil-thin doorhandles. The cabin is a private world, snug and intimate yet full of light.

The way the dashboard veneers sweep into the door cappings is a joy to behold, and Bentley had developed a sensitive power-assisted steering system that makes the S2 Continental an exquisitely mannered town car with the sort of instant, silky acceleration that still impresses when you want to waft suavely away from lesser vehicles.

The Bentley S3 Continental arrived in 1962, here with Park Ward’s angled lights

The slender throttle pedal, with its perfectly smooth action, and strong brakes with a transmission-driven servo are qualities common to all these 1950s and ’60s Bentley Continentals.

The 1962-’66 S3 models are instantly identified by their quad headlights, and it was Park Ward’s slanted design that appeared to open the door to the new decade for Rolls-Royce and Bentley.

Its clear, straight-through wing line and relatively low stance invited a new kind of younger ‘glamour’ customer and perhaps prepared its more established clients for the modern, boxy look of the forthcoming Silver Shadow and Bentley T-series.

In fact, the basic shape was evolved from the single-headlight S2 Continental drophead.

The Bentley S3 Continental in four-door Flying Spur guise

For the S3, its designer Vilhelm Koren added a razor-edged roof and paired headlights set at a subtle angle in the extremities of the wings.

Its detractors have always pointed to the fact that the model broke with Continental tradition by using rust-prone steel body panels (only the bonnet, bootlid and doors are aluminium) on a welded steel frame, but my love affair with it began at the age of five with a Dinky toy.

Choosing between one of these cars and a two-door Mulliner would be a tough – and very hypothetical – job, given that the driving experience is much the same: authoritative power with refinement and a reassuringly firm but cossetting ride (the ‘Hard’ and ‘Normal’ switch controls the Selectaride dampers, but it is hard to detect much difference).

Then there are all those tactile joys connected with the way the big, black steering wheel slides back through your fingers, the well-oiled throttle response and the precise action of every lever and switch in an instrument nacelle that was unique to the Park Ward.

The Bentley S3 Continental’s cabin is a delightful place to be

And what of the Flying Spur? Only 68 of these S3s were built in right-hand drive (as the Park Ward design began to dominate Continental sales), yet there is no doubt that with the quad headlights this is a ravishingly handsome car.

The rear doors blend perfectly into a shape that is much less formal than the Standard Steel Cloud III/S3 saloon and, at 4500lb, there was no weight penalty over the two-door Continental; the original R-type had tipped the scales at 3739lb.

The extra bulk is accounted for in huge seats, power windows and all kinds of other unseen refinements to make the S3 quieter and even more civilised.

You feel drawn to try the rear seats, only to find how small are the door openings and how cramped the rear quarters.

The advent of the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and Bentley T-series cars caused a rationalisation of the range.

Bentley revived the Continental name in 1984 on the old Corniche drophead

Crewe was so bound up in developing and satisfying a seemingly insatiable demand for this radically new monocoque-bodied, fully independent saloon that thoughts of a two-door variant didn’t get beyond Mulliner Park Ward’s elegant 1966 coupé and drophead variants, which had no real performance aspirations.

Priced at £8024 – a surprisingly modest £1500 premium over the Standard Steel – the last of the S3 Continentals was delivered as late as 1967.

The Continental name then disappeared for nearly 20 years, and anyone who wanted a faster, more exclusive variant had to be satisfied with either a Bentley Corniche (as the two-door coupé and drophead Shadow/T1 were renamed in 1971) or the 1975 Rolls-Royce Camargue.

Until the 1980s, Rolls-Royce became by far the dominant brand. It was only with the introduction of various turbocharged versions of the Mulsanne saloon that Bentley became fashionable again, and the time looked ripe to resurrect the Continental.

This Bentley Continental’s comfortable interior has more electronic toys, but still feels special

In the end, the badge first reappeared on 405 examples of the former Bentley Corniche drophead built from 1984 onwards.

They featured redesigned seats and dashboard, alloy wheels and fuel injection.

Amazingly, this drophead body style – originally designed by the quietly masterful John Blatchley in the mid-1960s – remained in production through to 1993, the late American-market cars having the turbocharged engine.

Even if you don’t like the big bumpers and the front spoiler, it is hard not to warm to this wonderfully relaxing car, with its marvellous split-level air-conditioning and silent hydraulic hood operation.

It is quite rapid enough in a straight line without being spectacular, and it has handling that borders on the realms of agile compared with earlier Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow-based offerings.

‘The Bentley Continental R’s turbocharged performance is immense: 0-60mph takes only 6.6 secs and the top speed is an electronically governed 145mph’

Around town, the big tyres twang into bumps and set the not-very-stiff body a-shaking, but this feels a small price to pay for the sense of wellbeing this car exudes.

These are the last of the coachbuilt Rolls-Royce and Bentley models. And they now look old enough for people not to hate you.

The Bentley Continental R coupé was not only the car that linked the pre- and post-VW eras at Crewe, but also the first Continental to recapture the flavour of the 1950s and ’60s models, with its handsome, all-new styling by John Heffernan and Ken Greenly that was developed in the wind tunnel.

As with the last of the Corniche/Continental Convertibles, its body was built in Crewe rather than at Mulliner Park Ward in London, using panels supplied by Park Sheet Metal of Coventry – a sad reminder of the demise of the West London coachbuilding industry that had previously been so integral to the Continental story.

This latest Continental R really replaced the Camargue as the ultimate owner/driver coupé, and was priced at a humongous £170,000 in 1991.

The Bentley Continental R got a central gearlever in the revised cabin

The shape, with its doors cutting into the roof and its integrated bumpers, has aged extremely well – certainly much better than the same design duo’s now strangely hideous Aston Martin Virage – and if you could afford the fuel bills it would make an interesting way to spend a surprisingly affordable sum on a usable modern classic.

Apart from the central gear selector – which was a first on an automatic Bentley – the feel of the interior is reassuringly familiar and patrician in its use of veneers and leather, but this is also the first of the Continentals that you feel you are sitting ‘in’ rather than ‘on’.

There is a ‘Sport’ button on the lever that sharpens up the gearchanges, but, either way, the turbocharged performance is immense: 0-60mph takes only 6.6 secs and the top speed is an electronically governed 145mph.

You can consume conspicuously in near silence, the 6.75-litre V8 emitting the occasional well-bred rumble.

The firm ride feels like an acceptable compromise for the way in which this huge car conducts itself: it has perfect manners, be it in either town or country.

The Bentley Continental R’s 6.75-litre V8

It is difficult to believe that the Volkswagen-era Bentley Continental GT was launched as long ago as 2003, representing a less expensive route into Bentley ownership.

And is an unusual find among modern cars in that it is smaller than you think it is, rather than much bigger: it’s incredibly wide and squat on massive 20in alloy wheels, but not particularly long.

It was launched as a 6-litre W12-engined car based on the Volkswagen Phaeton.

Since then, the unloved VW saloon has turned out to be a much rarer vehicle based on the evidence of how many you see on the road; the Continental GT, by way of contrast, has been a great success.

The fact that it is made to mass-production standards – it is hand-finished rather than handbuilt – has never been any secret, and has certainly been no hindrance to sales.

It is a near-200mph supercoupé and a world-class product that quickly spawned a convertible (known as the GTC) along with countless limited editions and has since evolved into subsequent generations.

The Bentley GT V8 S convertible is hugely capable

Remarkably little money buys one of the early Continental GT coupés today, and that makes them a highly tempting proposition as one of the great modern cars of recent times.

For the purposes of this story, however, Jack Barclay sent us the very latest, 95% recyclable Bentley GT V8 S convertible.

This version has a mere 528bhp from its 4-litre V8 in an attempt to extract better economy – it claims 26mpg – and rein in the flab, although it still weighs in at an outrageous 2½ tons.

Inside, you are slung low behind a thick and acutely angled windscreen frame, taking in one of today’s better-looking dashboards finished in Piano Black.

The chrome eyeball vents with their signature ‘organ stop’ controls are a pleasing nod to tradition – but what Bentley Continental of yesteryear ever featured drilled, boy-racer-style aluminium brake and throttle pedals?

Charting the evolution of Bentley’s sporting favourite

Even if it is hard to make the physiological link between this modern ‘bling’ statement and the classic Continentals of many decades previously, nobody could deny the excellence of the current incarnation as a means of getting to places distinctively and very rapidly.

There is power and four-wheel-drive grip here way beyond that which you could ever sensibly exploit on the road, the chassis doesn’t wobble for want of a roof and the hood is so free from old-fashioned annoyances (such as wind noise) that you sort of wonder why anyone would consider opting for the coupé.

The 2014 Bentley Continental GT is amazing in so many ways, but if it has to work hard to make its point in a noisy landscape of high-speed luxury coupés, the 1952-’55 Bentley R-type Continental had the field all to itself – and perhaps even invented the genre of the personal luxury coupé.

I can’t think of another vehicle that, in its time, was as effortlessly superior to every other car around it as the first of the Bentley Continentals.

The world was a very different place in 1952, of course, and later examples of the Continental breed shown here had a more difficult job than the original, today one of the gold-standard classic cars of the post-war era.

Images: James Mann

Thanks to: Frank Dale & Stepsons for the R-type, S1, S2, S3 Flying Spur and Continental R; Graeme Hunt for the S3 MPW Coupé; Jack Barclay for the V8 S; Syon Park

This was first in our January 2014 magazine; all information was correct at the date of original publication

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