After nearly a decade as Bentley’s flagship model, the Mulsanne will soon complete its production run and pass its torch to the all-new Flying Spur. Before then, and while the factory is shut down due to the ongoing global crisis, Bentley is celebrating the unmatched skills and expertise of the master craftspeople behind the ultimate luxury sedan. Production of the Mulsanne was due to finish in April, but has now been extended so that the final cars will be handcrafted when the Bentley workforce returns to the Crewe factory after the COVID-19 crisis.
The Mulsanne is handcrafted from the ground up in Crewe, where it was also designed, engineered and developed – from initial hand sketches through to final production sign-off. Over 7,300 examples have passed through the hands of the Mulsanne Makers, each car requiring over 400 hours of supreme skill and attention to detail to craft.
The Mulsanne Makers encapsulate all that the Mulsanne represents; unrivalled dedication to engineering and producing a sector-defining sedan with the use of traditional skills and materials, culminating in the ultimate combination of luxury and performance. Here, Bentley is profiling eight of them from across the business, who together represent a snapshot of the hundreds of people that took Mulsanne from the drawing board to reality and those that will continue to handcraft the Final Series of these remarkable cars when Bentley resumes production.
Crispin Marshfield – Design
Crispin is able to claim Mulsanne as one of his own. As a member of Bentley’s Exterior Design team, Crispin was responsible for what we all now recognise as the unmistakable Mulsanne shape. Crispin now continues to work on the Design Production of Bentley’s future models, seeing designs through from free-hand sketch to superformed metal.
“I worked on the Exterior Design of the Mulsanne since the project’s inception. I was involved in the initial ideation through to full scale clay model development and final production development.
“For me the Mulsanne will always be one of the projects that I am most proud of. Over time the Mulsanne has become recognised as a modern icon, quite unlike anything else on the road.”
“It’s the Bentley to be made on its own unique rear wheel drive platform and the last car to use the 6.75 litre V8 engine. As such it can trace its lineage back through generations of classic Bentleys. It truly is the end of an era.”
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SOURCE: Bentley
