We try the Silver Shadow’s rarer, classier first cousin

Words: Paul Wager |  Pics: Michael Whitestone

Bentley and Rolls-Royce today are in very different places courtesy of their respective German owners but there is still an entire generation of classic car enthusiasts for whom the two names will always be entwined. Today’s Bentley, part of the Volkswagen Group, turns out an impressive array of sporting heavyweights with the emphasis on luxury performance: buy today’s Mulsanne or Continental and you’ll most likely be looking forward to driving it yourself, whereas the super-luxury approach taken by BMW-owned Rolls-Royce has produced cars like the massive Phantom which is very much a car to be driven in. In fact when we visited the new R-R factory at Goodwood recently we were surprised to see just how many Phantoms were leaving the factory in long-wheelbase form complete with traditional divider and curtains for the emerging Asian economies. In many ways this is a return to the values originally espoused by the two marques but following their merger in 1931 when Bentley was acquired by Rolls-Royce, the more sporting Bentley became a secondary partner to staid Rolls-Royce, reduced to a slightly less expensive badge-engineered version of the Rolls-Royce line-up. Thus the Bentley MkVI is essentially a Silver Wraith, the R-Type was essentially the Silver Dawn, the S1 the Silver Cloud and the T1/T2 the Silver Shadow.

It’s no surprise then that sales of Bentley-badged cars dwindled during the ’60s and ’70s to the point where they accounted for less than 5 per cent of the firm’s output by 1980. After all, the Bentleys were less costly than the Rolls-Royce equivalent but still not exactly cheap: the T1 may have been £16,860 in 1967 but that was still nearly twice the price of an XJ12.

The T2 we’re driving here, loaned by Rolls-Royce and Bentley specialist Royce Service Engineering, is very much of that badge engineered era and being a 1979 model is essentially a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow II. In fact as Paul Brightman of Royce Service shows us, the pedal rubbers and speedometer face still bear the R-R logo rather than the flying ‘B’. Under the bonnet, things are even less subtle, with the V8’s valve covers carrying ‘Rolls Royce’ lettering. It’s no surprise when he tells us that customers often choose to have Bentley lettered replacements fitted during a rebuild.
The conversion from Bentley to Rolls-Royce also involved fitting the more rounded Bentley radiator in place of the angular R-R design and if you look closely, you’ll spot a small infill panel in the chromed bumper which takes up the empty space created by the convex Bentley grille.

Back in 1979 this T2 was priced at an identical £36,652 to the Silver Shadow II, so what type of person would have gone for the Bentley rather than the Rolls-Royce? Well the T2 predates the era of the Mulsanne Turbo when Bentley started to take on the performance mantle of the range, so we can only assume it was somebody who wanted to be less flashy, less obviously wealthy.

To read the complete road test see the November 2011 issue of Classic Car Mart - available here