Bentley Corniche Price Guide

The Bentley Corniche was a handbuilt two-door grand tourer produced by Mulliner Park Ward at their London coachbuilding facility, combining the T Series mechanical platform with bespoke bodywork in both fixed-head coupé and open convertible forms. Just 140 Bentley Corniches were built in total against approximately 4,000 Rolls-Royce equivalents, making it among the rarest post-war Bentleys.

The Car

Produced from 1971 to 1984, the Corniche used the 6,750cc V8 in both a fixed-head coupé and a drophead convertible. The coupé came first, evolved directly from the Mulliner Park Ward two-door saloon that had been available on the T Series since 1966. The convertible followed. Of the 140 Bentley Corniches built, 63 were coupés and 77 were convertibles. The coupé was discontinued in 1981 when the Silver Spirit arrived, with the convertible continuing until 1984 before the Bentley version was renamed the Continental. The walnut dashboard, hand-finished interior, and power-operated hood on convertibles placed the Corniche at the very top of the luxury market. Production was genuinely bespoke: each car took around four months to build. The Corniche evolved through several mechanical updates in line with the standard saloon range, gaining fuel injection on US-market cars in the early 1980s.

Buying

The coupé is the rarer body style and the one most frequently overlooked. Any car presented as a Bentley Corniche requires verification of its genuine Bentley identity: some have been rebadged from Rolls-Royce equivalents, and the two are mechanically identical. The Bentley heritage division holds complete production records and can confirm any car’s provenance. The 5000-series chassis numbers on genuine Bentley Corniches are the key identifier.