For a number of years, spying a Rolls-Royce with no hood ornament meant you’d found a Bentley. This 1988 Bentley Mulsanne S honors Bentley’s then-distant racing past, recalling, in marketing hype only, the ’20s and ’30s when the Flying “B” meant performance of the literal sort. By the time this sporty-ish RR alternative came along, buying a Bentley branded you with the sort of sportiness that inspires one to cast civility to the wind and order a Tawny Port Manhattan at the Country Club instead of a Chardonnay. You fiendish devil! This specimen shows extremely well for its claimed original 93,800 miles, and the listing here on Craigslist offers the apparently well-kept rolling luxury apartment building for a mere $9,950. Pack $10k in a shoebox and you’ll come away with enough gas money to get this “excellent” driver a few blocks closer to home after the sale. Thanks to reader T.J. for spotting this classy classic in Fort Meyers, Florida.
Luscious blue leather looks almost new, and those bucket seats and racy center console inspire you to carve up a canyon road, as long as that canyon is formed by skyscrapers on both sides and lacks curves of any kind. Copious sound insultation drowns out the screams of peasants you may unintentionally run over while escaping that unsightly protest at your corporate office. Let them eat cake!
New tires in sporty black walls tell drivers of other luxury cars that you mean business. No fancy-dancey whitewalls on this thoroughbred! Named after the Mulsanne Straight at LeMans, where 200+ MPH comes to those with ferocious power and no fear of death, the Bentley offered slightly stiffer ride than your neighbor’s Rolls Royce. One look at this Bentley and you sense its eagerness to lash out and frighten that spindly bloke at the valet stand with a sudden burst of torque and wayward steering. En garde, knave!
Someone’s been busy in here! This engine compartment suggests care beyond what it takes to make a grand entrance with your golf foursome. The fuel-injected 6.75L (412 cid) V8 makes 205 HP and a satisfying 398 lb-ft of velvety torque, similar numbers to Ford’s fuel-injected 460 cid (7.5L) truck motors of the day. Would you take a chance on this British battleship for the price of a used Camry?
Well done, Todd, and nice find, T.J.! That thing is beautiful and the price seems too good to be true for how nice this car looks inside and out. The seats look almost too nice as if they’ve been redone in vinyl. There’s no way those seats are original if the car has 93k on it and they’re leather. And, are the two left side doors a slightly darker hue? I’m just trying to talk myself out of buying it!
Hagerty is at $14,900 for a #3 good car and $18,500 for a #2 excellent car and this one sure looks closer to that higher value, but why is it half-price?
As an imbiber, my favorite part of the write up was the reference to the “Tawny Port Manhattan”, a cocktail I have never heard of and which I will be trying tonight.
I had a similar reaction and do have a bottle of tawny port. Only imbibe on Saturday and Saturday is nearly over so..something for next week.
As for the car? There is a voice whispering that few things are more expensive than “inexpensive ” exotic cars.
i hate those voices ……
seats are vinyl. yuk.
“Mr. Bentley builds the fastest lorries in the world.”
Wow!! Sure looks great!! I heard a Bentley is more pricey to maintain than a RR. Posted 7 days ago.
It’s a great looking car, and that price seems pretty low, but I have heard what was mentioned above…. this is not a cheap car to maintain.
i could get close to 20 mpg when driven sedately exactly as quoted in the owners manual!
Those things like to rot. Service costs ?? If you need to ask…
I’ve always wanted one of these for years…hense I’ve read everything I could find about them. So yes I know there is no such thing as a bargain Bentley and the repair costs/parts prices and certain complexities can make your eyes bleed. In spite of that if I had the funds and lived close to a Bentley service specialist I’d still want one.
Weird, the ad now lists the price at $24,000 and there are no photos.
And no description, and the odometer says 1.
I’ll be. That’s not sketchy at all, eh? Sounds like everyone who did *not* buy the car dodged a bullet.
Now it’s back up but at $14,900 or offer. The seller got back to me and said that he’s “blind” and that’s a shadow on the passenger side doors, not a darker color paint. No word on whether the perfect seats have been recovered in vinyl or not, though. $14,900 is a more realistic price, but I’d rather have worn leather than new vinyl – if it is vinyl, who knows. The area around the ignition and light switches is pretty rough, with a lot of the wood worn or chipped away. This is a strange one.
and that “vinyl” above the rough key trim area is very wrinkled