Azure (1995)

STORY

Rolls-Royce Motors unveiled the Azure at the Geneva show in March 1995 as the four-seat convertible version of the Continental R, with Pininfarina assembling the bodyshells in Italy, fitting the powered soft top and painting them before they went back to Crewe to be finished. Bentley puts the first generation at 1,311 cars to 2003. The single-turbo 6.75-litre V8 was quoted at 384 bhp, the engine then built by Cosworth under Vickers ownership, and the Azure Mulliner took the 420 bhp Continental T engine, 155 of those being built from 1999. Bentley, in the Volkswagen Group since 1998, showed the second-generation car at Frankfurt in autumn 2005 and sold it from spring 2006 on the Arnage platform with two turbochargers and 450 bhp, raised to 500 bhp for the Azure T of 2008. The last car was built in January 2010.