1998 Bentley Arnage Green Label

The Bentley Arnage was launched in 1998, replacing the legendary Bentley Turbo R. Built by Bentley Motors in Crewe from 1998 to 2009, the Arnage and its Rolls-Royce sibling the Silver Seraph were introduced in the Spring of 1998 and were the first entirely new designs for the two marques since 1980 when the Silver Spirit and Mulsanne models were introduced. The new Arnage was to be powered by a special twin-turbo version of the 4.4-litre BMW V8, which was developed by Vickers subsidiary, Cosworth Engineering.

When Aidan Barclay, the son of billionaire Sir David Barclay, and chairman of the Ritz Hotel, wanted a luxurious conveyance to glide around his myriad business addresses he naturally chose an Arnage. Bought new from H.R. Owen on the 9th June 1998, the accompanying invoice states the car was delivered in Bentley Black with a complementing black leather interior piped "Fireglow", slide and tilt sunroof, and a radio telephone. The service book and a number of letters and invoices within the history file show that Mr. Barclay fastidiously maintained the car up until its sale, at 9,560 miles, to our vendor in November 2009. The Arnage joined our vendor's private collection that includes Bentley, Jaguar, and Alvis amongst others, and during his ownership has been lightly used but regularly maintained. He decided to convert the car to run on LPG in the interests of economy and this was completed at a cost of some £3,000. This neat LPG adaptation makes a big difference to running costs and has recently been checked and certified.

The detailed history file includes every previous MOT corroborating the indicated mileage and the car is presented to auction with a fresh MOT valid until October 2017, the private registration "7141 RU", and just 25,500 miles. This delightful Arnage has been serviced at the following intervals:

14/05/1998 H.R. Owen at 28 miles

22/08/2000 H.R. Owen at 2,510 miles

25/09/2001 H.R. Owen at 3,339 miles

04/09/2002 The Bentley Service Centre (Jack Barclay) at 3,874 miles

15/10/2003 Jack Barclay at 4,473 miles

23/09/2004 Jack Barclay at 4,477 miles

09/09/2005 Jack Barclay at 6,284 miles

06/10/2006 Jack Barclay at 7,060 miles

30/05/2007 Jack Barclay at 7,496 miles

30/09/2009 Jack Barclay at 8,952 miles

September 2010 BB Developments at circa 15,000 miles

September 2013 BB Developments at circa 20,000 miles

30/09/2015 Bentley Birmingham at 24,775 miles