A 1978 model year brochure showed on the inside of the cover a photo a 4-door Bentley parked in London in front of a shop with a high reputation for top-class leather goods. As such a photo had been accepted for inclusion in a prospect that gave a detailed description of the Bentley T2 it will be ok to show here photos of a Bentley T2 which had been taken in front of shops which might be familiar to those from our readers who occasionally use their credit cards at shops located in Place Vendome, Paris.

As regards the car’s dimensions a Bentley T2 was an appropriate choice for a shopping tour. The figures from the attached tableau clearly inform that this model in addition to a spacious passenger compartment did offer a sufficiently dimensioned boot. Even if after an extended shopping a number of bags needed to be stowed plus perhaps one or the other box of considerable weight – the Bentley T2 remained on an even keel. This was one of the tasks of the Hydropneumatic system. A distinctive feature of this was that height control with car at standstill (when passengers entered and luggage or else was loaded) operated at three times the rate of that when driving (when usually only the consumption from what the petrol tank contained had to be dealt with).

 
Obviously a Bentley T2 blended in well with an area where a metropolis’s top shopping addresses were located and that remained such to this day. Such a statement though permits to doubt the wisdom of those marketing experts at Rolls-Royce and Bentley who during the 70s were responsible for the Bentley marque showing less and less a clear profile of its own; instead they increasingly did concentrate on Rolls-Royce motor cars. It is but one indication of such attitude that in certain brochures of the Bentley T2 neither illustrations of the instrument board nor of the engine compartment were to be found. No wonder because opening the bonnet showed the engine’s top was embossed “Rolls-Royce” and a quick glance at the speedometer revealed there was no Bentley logo but the sister model’s entwined RR.

So it is hardly a surprise to note that during this model’s production period from 1977 to 1980 all in all less than 600 Bentley T2 were ordered. Thus the chance to spot one is fairly rare; an explanation perhaps why a dyed-in-the-wool aficionado when seeing one of these at Place Vendome is more thrilled than when seeing the amount the wife at his side had just cause the credit card to be debited with at one of the shops there.