Bentley Mulsanne: live launch

These optional 21s are the wheels to have. 

This one for Miami - white on 21in chromes. 

The front end is supposed to echo old Bentleys from back in the day. Look at this Bentley eight-litre and you can see what I mean. Does it look good? Jury's still out. History shouldn't always be repeated.

The big 6.75 V8 is still the daddy. Old tech seriously updated; it now shuts down four cylinders when not needed, adding about five per cent to overall efficiency. I certainly couldn't detect it operating. And it now has variable cam-phasing and loads of other tricks that make it better at mpg and making flowers happy - though it's still not going to win any prizes for being eco. But the best bit is that it feels defined - the way this car goes down a road has character. Quite hard to do when you've got a tricksy modern eight-speeder and lots of other tech. It feels like a 'proper' Bentley - which is a big score in my eyes, and harder to do than you might imagine. Even the satnav looks great. And speaks English and everything.

So, a big detail of those controversial lights: the main beam is the big one, with LED daylight running lights in the rim of the smaller one, the indicators inside them.

Side profile: you can get some pretty blingy options. But I'm drawn to these wheels. Ooooh. Shiny. 

That's the old eight-litre. This is the first big Bentley that's new from the ground up in 80 years. Not based on a Phaeton. Not based on anything. 

Choice?

The original. How narrow?