1960 Bentley S2 Continental Coupe By H.J. Mulliner – From The Waning Days Of Coachbuilt British Luxury

 

I ran across the listing for this handsome Mulliner-bodied Bentley S2 Continental coupe while looking for photos of green cars for another recent post, but it’s attractive enough to be worth a closer look, with some thoughts on this kind of car and the waning days of the coachbuilt era of high-end automotive luxury.

If your knowledge of postwar British luxury cars is spotty, some introduction may be in order: The dark green coupe in the photos is a 1960 Bentley S2 Continental, wearing a “two-door saloon” body by the coachbuilder H.J. Mulliner & Co. Ltd. in Cheswick, England. This car is from the lengthy era in which Bentley was owned by Rolls-Royce — Series S Bentleys were closely related to the contemporary Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, with the “S2” designation indicating that this is the updated version introduced in October 1959, which traded the venerable Rolls-Royce F-head six-cylinder engine for a new all-aluminum OHV V-8, the 6,230 cc (380 cu. in.) L410 engine.

 

The “Continental” designation means that this is one of the lighter, sportier Bentley models, which had a somewhat different chassis than the standard sedans and used (relatively) lightweight bodies made by a number of factory-approved English coachbuilding firms. Until 1957, Continentals were all two-doors, but by this time, there were also a number of four-door variants on the same chassis, built by Mulliner, Park Ward, and James Young, plus a single car bodied by Hooper & Co. The Mulliner bodies were the most common, accounting for either 221 or 223 of the 388 S2 Continentals built from 1959 through 1962.

 

In 1960, you usually couldn’t simply walk into a dealership and drive away with a new “off-the-rack” Bentley Continental coupe or convertible. If you wanted a new Continental, you instructed your dealership to order a rolling chassis from the factory and then arranged to purchase a suitable body from a coachbuilder, finished to your specifications. In practice, this was somewhat less complicated than you might think. An authorized dealer could generally submit the coachwork order on your behalf, and the factory had close relationships with the approved coachbuilding firms: Both Mulliner and Park Ward were actually owned by Rolls-Royce (Park Ward since 1939, Mulliner since 1959), while James Young had been owned since 1937 by Jack Barclay Ltd., the leading London Rolls-Royce/Bentley dealer.

Although still substantially hand-built, most of the coachbuilt bodies were standardized, cataloged designs, and the range of variations was relatively small. You selected the body style you wanted from a catalog; specified if you wanted right-hand or left-hand drive; chose your colors and trim; and ordered any desired optional equipment, such as tinted glass, air conditioning, or radios (most of which were regular factory options on mass-market cars by this time). The coachbuilders could usually accommodate localization requests (such as speedometers reading in km/h rather than mph or country-specific lighting changes) and a certain limited amount of personalization. However, the factory took a very dim view of any unusual or outlandish custom work, to the extent of threatening to rescind warranty coverage of any car deemed injurious to the image of the Bentley or Rolls-Royce brands.

 

To those of us in the cheap seats, this seems like a lot of needless additional hassle on top of the normal process of buying a new car. It strikes me like arranging to have lunch at the fancy restaurant of a well-known chef who famously makes everything fresh to order — only to learn that the menu is far more limited than even the average pub kitchen, everything must be ordered months in advance, and you may be permanently blacklisted if you request a substitution or a condiment the chef doesn’t like.

 

However, a new Rolls or Bentley was not a car for me or thee, and I assume this cumbersome rigmarole served to reassure well-heeled customers that they were getting real quality. When it came to fit and finish, of course, they were, which is what you were really paying for with toweringly expensive cars like these. You weren’t necessarily getting the latest engineering, features, or performance, and you might have fewer real choices than you could get on some far more plebeian cars, but you DID get first-rate materials, painstakingly assembled with a standard of care and workmanship that mass-market luxury cars couldn’t match — along with the prestige of owning an exclusive bespoke model.

 

The question — and the issue that the coachbuilding industry was finding it harder and harder to reconcile — was whether the results were enough better to be worth the substantial additional cost and inconvenience, particularly as the standards of mass-production quality increased. A coachbuilt product like this Mulliner Continental still had a qualitative edge, but you paid a very hefty premium for that. I don’t have the original price for this particular Bentley, which was purchased as a company car for a senior Rolls-Royce executive and has nearly every option in the catalog, but a new Bentley Continental in this period ran to something between £8,000 and £9,000 including British purchase tax — let’s say $24,000 to $25,000 at the contemporary exchange rate, enough to buy a whole fleet of more down-to-earth cars.

 

 

As for the car itself, at the risk of offending the dignity of the Empire in a way that might still be a hanging offense in some places, I can’t help seeing a lot of 1949 Cadillac in these Continentals. The resemblance is not as strong as it had been on the S1 and the earlier R-type Continentals, since Mulliner had shortened the roof and extended the rear deck of its two-door saloon to give it a more notchback profile; they also eschewed the discreet fins of some of the S1 Park Ward coupes. However, with its bulbous rear fenders and semi-fastback shape, the Mulliner S2 Continental still has a distinct 1940s vibe:

 

The 1949 Cadillac resemblance isn’t only cosmetic. Despite its aluminum block and heads, the short-stroke Rolls-Royce V-8 bears some resemblance to the 1949 Cadillac engine. Project engineer Jack Phillips, who led the design of the L410 engine, always strenuously denied that the Rolls V-8 was a copy of any Detroit design, but technical director Harry Grylls admitted privately that Rolls-Royce had studied the Cadillac V-8 (along with the 1951 Chrysler FirePower engine). Moreover, Bentley and Rolls-Royce also still used the older single-coupling Hydra-Matic transmission, which Rolls-Royce manufactured under license.

Bentley chassis design was also rather ’40s. The S2 still used lever-action hydraulic shock absorbers, which in front did double duty as upper wishbones — much like the old GM Knee Action suspension that Cadillac retained through 1949. A live axle on semi-elliptical leaf springs sufficed in back, although there were a few novelties: The rear shock absorbers had solenoid-operated control valves that allowed the driver to adjust their stiffness using a steering column switch, and supplementary rear axle location was provided by an unusual control link, mounted between the right frame rail and the right side of the axle.

 

Rolls-Royce called this link the “Z” bar. As originally installed on Bentley S1 cars, it increased rear roll stiffness as well as controlling axle tramp, but the factory soon thought better of this, so S2 cars got a different, shorter bar, and many S1 cars had their Z bars modified to only act as torque arms, without affecting roll.

 

The earlier six-cylinder R-type Bentley Continental, unveiled in 1952, had been a genuine high-performance luxury car by the standards of its time. The general consensus is that the S-type had sacrificed much of its predecessor’s sporting edge in favor of comfort. An S2 Continental like the green car was bigger and a good deal heavier than the 1952 R-type (to the tune of some 500 lb!), and even with the rear shocks set to “HARD,” it was better at cosseting than cornering. Even The Autocar, which normally approached cars like this with exaggerated deference, admitted that the S2 could feel a little clumsy on narrow, uneven roads, finding it more confident in fast motorway cruising. More Coupe de Ville than Monte Carlo Rally, in other words.

 

Rolls-Royce didn’t publish power outputs in this era, but Harry Grylls hinted that the V-8 had around 200 hp and 325 lb-ft of torque. In the lighter Continental cars — which weighed about 400 lb less than the standard Bentley sedan and were a bit sleeker aerodynamically — there was enough power to reach 60 mph in about 12 seconds, and top speed was around 115 mph with the standard 3.08 axle. Selecting the optional 2.92 high-speed axle put 120 mph within reach, at a slight cost in acceleration. This was still impressive for 1960 (no British or European driver of the time was likely to sneer at 120 mph capability), but it wasn’t a huge advance over the lighter R-type: An S2 was somewhat quicker, suggesting more torque, but no faster all out, and it consumed high-octane fuel at a rate of 11 to 12 miles to the U.S. gallon.

 

S2 Continentals did have strong if somewhat eccentric brakes. Rolls-Royce and Bentley still used twin trailing shoe drums rather than discs, boosted by the traditional transmission-driven mechanical brake servo. However, S2 Continentals got new front brakes with four shoes rather than two, which increased total brake lining area by more than 25 percent. This meant the S2 Continental had over 40 percent more effective brake lining area than a 1960 Cadillac, which weighed about a half-ton more. Also, while the mechanical servo limited pedal effort when stopping from higher speeds, its servo action was dependent on road speed, so the brakes were not as feather-light around town as a typical American power brake setup of the time. The four-shoe brakes were noisier, however, and hard use could generate enough heat to crack the drums.

 

In all, I think this car demonstrates both the appeal and the limitations of this kind of high-end luxury make. Because the Bentley S2 was produced in small numbers at lavish prices, its craftsmanship and materials were often exquisite, especially on the coachbuilt bodies. On the other hand, the same limited production that made such quality possible also made it increasingly difficult for the factory to keep pace with trends in technology and features. The S2 chassis was a little rustic even for 1960, a point underscored by the launch of the Jaguar Mark X sedan a year later (not, of course, that a discerning Bentley owner of this era would stoop to driving a Jaguar, which was considered a flash car for gangsters and touts). Rolls-Royce and Bentley were already falling behind the times in matters like air conditioning. (The factory had offered air since 1956, but its capacity was originally so limited that The Autocar felt obliged to note that it didn’t need to be very powerful because “In countries where the system is needed, the occupants of the car usually dress according to the climate … often without jackets.”)

 

The S2 Continental is a very nice car, handsome and well-made, but buying a car like this involved some less-than-happy tradeoffs even beside the cost in time and money, and its good qualities were achieved in ways that made less and less sense for customers, the factory, or the coachbuilders themselves. Hooper & Co. bowed out towards the end of 1959, Rolls-Royce felt obliged to merge Mulliner and Park Ward in 1961, and James Young shut down in 1967.

There’s still a small market for actual coachbuilding, but it’s become extremely rarefied even in the loftiest tax brackets. Mulliner still exists today as part of Bentley, but while they occasionally do a few very limited-edition handbuilt models, much of their focus now is on personal commissioning — special paint and the like for Bentley production vehicles. It’s definitely boutique, but only occasionally is it truly bespoke, and no one really seems to mind.

Related Reading

Curbside Classic: 1959-’62 Bentley S2 – Tut tut! (by Daniel Stern)
Curbside Classic: 1959 Bentley S2 – New Wine In An Old Bottle (by Tatra87)
Curbside Classic: 1963 Bentley S3 Continental Flying Spur – Three Houses’ Worth (by Tatra87)
Curbside Classic: 1964 Bentley S3 – Grille Engineering (by Tatra87)
Automotive History: Who Actually Styled the 1952 Bentley Continental? (by Don Andreina)
Curbside Classic: 1964 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III “Korenental” Drophead Coupé by H.J. Mulliner-Park Ward *phew!* – The Sun Fin-ally Sets On British Coachbuilding (by Tatra87)