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Bentley in no rush to retire Mulsanne's 6.75-liter V8

2011 Bentley Mulsanne
2011 Bentley Mulsanne
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Since taking over Bentley, the Volkswagen Group has done a lot to modernize the marque and its products. And no small part of that came down to the engines. Under VW stewardship, Bentley introduced its ubiquitous W12 that makes it the largest producer of twelve-cylinder engines in the world. It then rolled out a smaller V8 co-developed with Audi that offers nearly all the benefits of the larger twelve but with less weight and better fuel economy. There's even been talk of hybrids and diesels. But one thing the Germans have avoided touching is the 6.75-liter V8 in the Mulsanne.

Based on architecture that dates back to 1959, the Bentley L Series engine is one of the oldest automobile engines still in production. But while the basic architecture may remain the same, the engine has, of course, gone through many updates over the past several decades. Introduced when Bentley was still under Rolls-Royce ownership, official output figures were not released, but suffice it to say you can rest assured that it has increased dramatically from the "perfectly adequate" ratings of the original to the effortless 505 horsepower and 752 pound-feet of torque it produces in the Mulsanne today.

And for the foreseeable future, according to Autovisie, the car section of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. Which may seem like a foregone conclusion, but does not represent the wisdom of a couple years ago. Speaking with an unnamed spokesperson for Bentley, Autovisie reports that the Flying B marque has no intention of retiring the big old V8 that's still demanded by Mulsanne customers who are not interested in a newer or more technologically advanced engine brought in from Germany. The 6.75-liter V8 is a Bentley signature, after all – much as it was for Rolls-Royce before the two split and new parent BMW developed a V12 of the same capacity for the Phantom – and that's not about to change any time soon, emissions legislation be damned.

Bentley Mulsanne Information

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