Bentley Arnage Buyer's Guide
Seven tracked Arnage sales, £8,000 to £18,000, median £14,500, with two live as we write: a well-traded record for a car this grand. The Arnage was the final Bentley saloon of the Crewe era, carrying the long-serving 6.75-litre V8 into the modern age, and it now sells for less than some of its own restoration invoices. The purchase price is the smallest number in Arnage ownership, and every sensible bid starts from that fact.
What to pay
£8,000 to £12,000 buys cars with needs: higher mileage, patchy history, and deferred maintenance that will surface as four-figure bills. Around our £14,500 median sits the right car, one with a consistent specialist service file and evidence the hydraulics and cooling system have been kept honest. The £18,000 ceiling buys the best-kept examples in our records; even there, the file matters more than the odometer.
What goes wrong
The known items are exactly the expensive ones: head gaskets on the V8, the braking and suspension hydraulics, and corrosion in sills and wheel arches on cars that wintered outside. None of it is mysterious, all of it is documented by the specialist trade, and all of it costs Bentley money to put right. Budget £2,500 to £4,000 a year for honest upkeep on a good car, more in catch-up years, and treat any Arnage without recent specialist invoices as a car still hiding its bills.
Our view
Bought well, an Arnage is the most car per pound in the entire Bentley catalogue; bought cheap, it is a subscription to someone else's neglect. Pay median money for the fattest history file available and hold the running budget sacred. The 6.75 V8 and its specialist network will keep a maintained car alive indefinitely, which is more than can be said for a bargain one.
