Road Test
Bentley Azure (06-) 6.75 V8 2dr Open
Test date 11 October 2006
Price as tested £225,900
For Massive presence, beautiful cabin, amazing performance
AgainstA tad expensive, a tad thirsty, a tad old-fashioned
It would be terribly easy to take one look at the Bentley Azure, especially at its eye-watering list price of £222,500, and dismiss it as an anathema, an irrelevant dinosaur that no longer deserves a place on our roads in 2006. And neither Bentley nor the sort of customers for whom the all-new Azure has been created would care one iota if that’s how the rest of the world received this car.
But for the small and exquisitely wealthy section of society that can afford a machine like the Azure there is, in fact, nothing else quite like it. Not, that is, until Rolls-Royce removes the lid from its Phantom to produce the new Corniche, due early next year.
So what exactly is the Azure? And considering that Bentley’s market research suggests potential buyers of this car will already own between five and 12 other cars, why would someone like that be remotely interested in owning it anyway?
The Azure was once a four-seat convertible version of the ancient Mulsanne Turbo – namely a huge, wobbly behemoth of a car with all the refinement of a small lorry, but featuring a delightfully antiquated interior and… that was about it.
The latest Azure really is new. Beneath the redesigned exterior (the work of Bentley design chief Dirk van Braeckel, who was also responsible for the Continental GT and the rag-top GTC), it’s unrecognisable from the wheels up next to its predecessor. Bentley claims that, as a result, it’s much sharper than the old Azure in every dimension.
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