Gently, Bentley

Only weeks after announcing it had secured the Australian franchise for Bugatti, prestige car specialist Trivett opened its new Bentley showrooms in Sydney's CBD on March 27, featuring the new Brooklands model as centrepiece.

The event was considered so important by the Bentley factory in Crewe that Geoff Dowding, who is director of worldwide operations, flew in just to attend.

20 dealers were in the bidding for the Bentley franchise when it came up for grabs last year, with the Trivett Group successfully acquiring the rights for NSW and the ACT.

In addition to Bugatti, Trivett's stable of marques includes Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Porsche and BMW.

The new Brooklands is named after the famous British circuit on which Bentleys were so dominant in the 1920s.

The exclusive two-door coupe is based on the Arnage sedan and will be restricted to a build of just 550 vehicles. It is powered by a twin-turbo 6.75-litre V8 touted as the most powerful V8 ever to come out of the Crewe plant with an output of 395kW supported by an enormous 1050Nm of torque -- again claimed to break records as the highest figure produced by any V8 auto engine in the world.

With the standard six-speed auto transmission, this is enough to propel the massive heavyweight beast to 100km/h in 5.3 seconds on the way to a top speed of 296km/h.

The Bentley may hold only four passengers, but none are likely to feel hard done by, as interior space is said to easily better that of any other coupe available today.

Interestingly, the acceleration of the Brooklands is matched by an unlikely competitor -- Ford's new XR6 turbo which, in automatic form, also reaches 100km/h from a standstill in 5.3 seconds. This is the sort of thing that will have Porsche 911 owners seriously thinking about performance-enhancing ECUs.

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