Bentley Mulliner Bacalar

In the 1920s and 1930s it was part of the normal day-to-day business of luxury car manufacturers to meet special customer requests. These could concern small details in the interior as well as completely independent bodyworks. The latter were often built by external coachbuilders. This beautiful tradition was only shortlived after World War 2 due to the newly emerging self-supporting bodies. In the end it even fell into oblivion. Bentley now wants to revive this tradition. For this purpose their subsidiary Mulliner, the oldest coachbuilder in the world, which has been part of the brand for many decades, offers a new Bespoke programme. This is divided into three branches: ‘Classic’, ‘Collections’ and ‘Coachbuilt’ for special customers, whose first product has now been introduced. Actually, the large exhibition stage of the Geneva International Motor Show (GIMS) was chosen for this purpose, but as is well known, it had to be cancelled due to a ban by the Swiss government for events with more than 1,000 visitors. So the premiere took place without journalists at the company headquarters in Crewe.

The first vehicle of the ‘Coachbuilt’ division is called Bacalar and will be the rarest two-door Bentley of modern times. The name comes from the lake Laguna Bacalar on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Bentley is thus continuing the trend that began with the Bentayga towards naming cars based on natural landmarks. Mulliner can look back on a history that goes back to the 1500s. Even then, the company was known for its particularly luxurious carriages. So in the Bacalar more than 500 years of experience meet the most modern technology. Each of the 12 planned vehicles is handmade by Mulliner in close cooperation with the respective customer in order to realize his or her wishes as exactly as possible. The roofless barchetta design is the only fixed point that unites all of them.

The Bentley team deliberately incorporated some of the details of the EXP100GT, which last year announced the future of luxurious cars on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the brand. At the same time, the roll bars behind the seats, which extends into two humps in a long sweep to the rear end, together with the spoiler integrated into the rear end, create a harmonious barchetta design. As with the EXP100GT, ash from rice shells is used in the paint to create a special yet lasting metallic effect. The interior uses wool from Great Britain and 5,000 year old riverwood found in the Fenlands in East Anglia.

Bentley uses the well-known six-liter W12 biturbo engine, which delivers 659 hp and 900 newtonmeters of torque in the Bacalar. The power is transmitted to the four-wheel drive system via an eight-speed automatic transmission. This has an intelligent system for torque distribution, which means that in normal driving conditions the driver will be driving mainly with rear-wheel drive.

While Bentley didn’t announce an official sales price for the Mulliner Bacalar (some sources say it is about £ 1.5 million plus taxes), there is an information in the press release which might annoy new interested parties: All 12 units have already been pre-ordered in advance of the world premiere. However, Mulliner offers this possibility of unique vehicles in the future in their new ‘Coachbuilt’ program permanently. At the same time, the ‘Classic’ program offers customers the opportunity to purchase classic highlights of the Bentley portfolio as new editions. The first of these is the Bentley Blower from 1929, of which 12 vehicles will be reproduced, which was announced at the end of last year. Mulliner’s ‘Classic’ division was also the one who rebuilt the 1939 Bentley Corniche (we reported). Via their third pillar called ‘Collections’ Mulliner continues to offer luxurious special models of the current Bentley model range. Currently the Continental GT Mulliner Convertible is one of them. Mulliner also takes care of special requests, from paint to sample colors to individual interior parts.

Images: Bentley