The Missing Link > Bentley Brooklands

The New Old Continental.

Spying the Bentley Brooklands, it didn’t occur to me that in the belly of the Javitz last March I witnessed the missing link (cynics might chortle: in more ways than one).

A void has existed since Bentley phased out the Continental line – and I don’t mean the VW Phaeton that the Germans have dressed in English tailoring – but the honest to goodness to riches Pininfarina penned aircraft carriers that Crewe used to launch one armada at a time.

Like Britain’s Invicible Class and Italy’s Garibaldi Class, Bentley’s Continentals were ancient and needed decommissioning to keep the fleet viable.

So, for a time the world was treated to the Continental GT – the flummoxed Phaeton reborn – as the pretty, 200 mph + face that Bentley Motors successfully presented the world.

Bentley The Brand v. Bentley The Marque

Many orders later and the old guard suitably disenfranchised, Bentley has at last made good and reinvested in the ancien regime.

As I had earlier indicated, I looked upon the limited production Brooklands as a kind of handsome, one off hard-topped fluke set to satisfy rained-in Britons.

But I (like many I suspect) had forgotten the important role the “original” Continentals (R, T) played in reclaiming Bentley’s overshadowed legacy in the 1990s.

The Brooklands does fill in a heretofore forgotten niche. Trouble is, it seems like Bentley’s management is treating the Brooklands line as just that; a temporary salve to calm a pejorative few who remain recalcitrant in the face of product homogenization.

Five hundred and fifty cars is a little too exclusive and sends a clear signal that the way of the future is the Continental GT and its VW ilk.

Hence the use of the name “Brooklands” instead of “Continental.” Were it the latter, we’d expect more units.

However, as we may recall the original Brooklands sedan of the 90s… well… that’s just the point.

Most of us don’t. The sedan was a sharp if a little to quiet footnote to the Turbo R revolution.

Still, moniker aside, the Brooklands is the missing link that fills the void.

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