Since Rolls Royce have been finding happy customers for the Phantom Drophead for many years, Bentley have decided ‘anything you can do…’

 

Bentley recently announced their new Grand Convertible concept car. There’s a delicious irony when a brand that’s as British as cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, stiff upper lips and ceaseless grey drizzle, opts for a convertible, given the aforementioned drizzle. Tellingly, it made its debut in Los Angeles, where someone once saw a single cloud in the powder blue sky and called the army fearing alien attack.

While the name might be a little ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’, the machine more than makes up for lapse in imagination, with startling opulence and beastly performance. Coming in dimensions that are more land yacht than automobile, the Grand Convertible is available in a suave two-tone – Sequin Blue (a hue originally derived from a single sequin of an haute couture gown) and silver, with what seems like acres of walnut decking to boot.

Based on the popular and pricey Mulsanne it boasts 6.75-litre twin V8s, 530 hp, and 1000 Nm of torque. Early indications are that maybe a dozen of these enormous beauties will be made at most – and until they commission it, if you hand over a mere quarter of a million dollars you will be told, terribly politely, where to go. It remains to be seen if this experiment will pave the way for even more interesting variations, but rest assured we will let you know.

Words by Tom Mayo. Find out more at bentleymotors.com.