At first glance, you may consider this 1999 Bentley Arnage Green Label to be one of the riskiest cars you can buy. And it may very well be – but there’s a fine line between a solid driver and a potential problem that all comes down to maintenance. Did the seller spend the appropriate amount of time and money keeping this six-figure sedan up to snuff? Oftentimes, you have to be prepared to spend far more on the car beyond it’s selling price just in upkeep, so owning a Bentley like this does require a commitment. Find this Green Label listed here on craigslist for $19,999.
Of course, like so many other listings for cars with regular upkeep needs at the priciest of repair facilities, The seller includes no details about its maintenance history. For anyone selling a car like this, please consider how important it is to show potential buyers that you’ve been sweating the details. Of course, with a little digging, you may find some evidence that is maintenance expenditures haven’t been as high as you might think, as many enthusiasts feel the 1999s are fairly reliable, and certainly more so than the cars that immediately followed. The seller does confirm he has never driven it in winter, an important detail considering he’s in Illinois.
The interior is loaded with high-end materials that all contributed to an original MSRP of well over $200,000 when new. The Bentley is listed as having just under 74,000 miles, which is a reasonable number for a car of this vintage. The Green Label designation means this sedan came equipped with BMW’s 4.4L twin-turbo V8, which was good for a respectable 350 horsepower paired to a 5-speed automatic transmission that could thrust the heavy sedan to 60 in under 7 seconds. While this isn’t the cheapest engine to live with, it was used in multiple vehicles across BMW’s lineup so parts sourcing shouldn’t be too difficult.
The stunning dashboard is one of the big Bentley’s best features, and thankfully, the technology on board isn’t overwhelming. That’s not to say things still won’t break and cost an absolute fortune to repair, but it’s limited to things like parking sensors the complicated climate control. There’s a world where you can drive this car like a daily with the proper mindset about upkeep, along with a thick stack of invoices in hand from the previous owner. $20,000 is a lot to spend on a risky purchase, so hopefully there’s some room for negotiation to knock it down to $15K or a strong enough maintenance folio to justify the ask. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Barney for the tip.
I wanted a car like this.It’s interesting that you can
buy a car that sold crazy money new for less than the
price of a generic daily driver.
I always wanted an older BMW or Mercedes,but would
change my mind when I’d ask true mechanics about them &
they’d reply with costs of repairs.
And somehow “Buying a Bentley off of craigslist” just doesn’t
inspire a lot of confidence,or impress anyone.
As the old saying goes, “How the mighty have fallen”
I would be impressed by anybody having the stones to do it!
Take it from someone from it’s homeland , overrated money pit .
You’ll spend less heating your house by burning money than running one of these.
The Bentley quit being a Bentley when they quit hand-assembling them, many years before. They’ve only been existing off of their name since. You could say the same for Rolls.
This was the last generation of the truly hand built cars, Terry. The Arnage seen here and its Rolls-Royce sister, the Silver Seraph, were the final models to be built by hand in the same factory in Crewe.
Looked like nice day when this was posted , yet too lazy to remove it from their garage ?Too lazy to talk about it’s history or the above mentioned service records. For $20,000 I will but a really nice Lexus LS430 instead.
Not to bad mouth theses beautifull cars. They really are something very special. That being said, however. They are unbelivable overbuilt, and overly complex machines.
I did a fair amount of work on a 1969 Bentley T1 brakes, suspension, steering, odds and ends. Just the parts cost alone ( no markup at all ) was $11,000!!and this was 15 years ago. Buying from a wholesaler. To give just one sample of complexity. A any normal car will have 3, or a max of 4 flex lines in the braking system. RR’s and Bentley’s have 13 of them. You just cannot comprehend how complex the braking systems are. And the same can be said for most of the systems on these cars. The power windows are, again, so ridiculesly complex. With a confounding number of parts. So buyer beware
I would say: ¨Buyer, RUN!¨
I’ts a nice one but a money pit just waiting to happen. Many of these are on their third or forth owner that cannot grasp the fact that maintenance has an astronomical price so they ride it until it breaks and costs even more to fix. Anybody whom would buy such a vehicule brings it first to a qualified tech for a.complete check.right down to the last bolt
At the rate of depreciation from 270K to 20K in another 26 years this car’s estimated resale cost would be around $1480.
All kidding aside, this is a beautiful car inside and out. I know absolutely zero about them. But if someone always wanted Bentley to drive by an ex girlfriend’s house after she dumped you, this is your chance.
I’ll just keep driving my F250 that my ex-girlfriend that married me and didn’t dump me lets me have.
A nice car if you’re a Certified Bentley Technician, otherwise run!
One of the premier RR/Bentley (and more) repair resources is just a couple miles down the street so a mid-size lottery win would let me take care of this saloon.
Auto Repair for British Imports | Acme Car Service | Hayward, CA https://share.google/98R3cbpXtYa2YP8gr
For some reason this reminded me of the sonnet
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Dearest Naive Readers, The Bentley Arnage was the last hand-assembled Proper Motor Car [PMC] to be produced. Reportedly less than 60 Green Label vehicles were produced during 1998-99, all with the light-weight, and more agile, BMW sourced twin-turbo V8 with a ZF Five Speed Automatic Transmission [some sources report as few as 7 units produced]. Depending on how aggressively one proceeds determines this ZF transmission’s durability [the weakest link]. Otherwise, this model is regarded as less troublesome than other PMCs. The interior features the last of Connolly Leathers used in a PMC; with a lack of wear of the driver’s bolster, I would imagine the car has been well respected and cared for over the past quarter of a century. Unlike most post-war Bentleys, the Arnage is made of steel not aluminium, as you can see by the minor oxidation on the driver’s upper door hinge. Further proof of the owner’s respect for this PMC is no visible cracking to the wood door caps, and no sweaty elbow cracking on the leather armrest. Can’t say the same for the bottom of the leather wrapped steering wheel; but this also tells me the cars has been driven leisurely versus aggressively. The driver appears to have been competent in parking as there is no visible wheel rash on the driver’s side. However, we should all agree a closer in-person examination needs to be done in the bright light of day for the engine compartment, fluids, passenger side, boot, and underside for scuff marks on aprons and suspension components. All should be quite proud to be seen about town in this conveyance!
Well, Lady Whistledown, it+s an honor, I am sure, to be addressed by such a Royal Highness as you, particularly since we all are naive; at least you didn´t refer to us as stupid, even though that was doubtlessly on your mind. It is quite interesting to note you are totally oblivious of your stiff upper lip arrogance, what with Proper Motor Car and all. Why don´t you have another brandy and enjoy your oil dripping ¨proper motor car¨while waiting for the tow truck.
I have never seen a car being offered which illicited nothing but negative posts, all of them justified. It required a gullible, German company to actually buy this wreck of an enterprise, spend untold millions and continue to lose tons of cash. Sometimes I think it is by design, we cannot be collectively THAT stupid;
Guaranteed money pit
If I didn’t have a driveway full of other decrepit needy money pits, I would love to drive this one home, lol