If Bentley’s new Brooklands Coupé takes your fancy, then hurry along to a dealer near you and thrust £25,000 into welcoming hands. It won’t buy the whole thing but that’s the going rate for a deposit on one of the world’s most exclusive and powerful super-luxury coupés.

And it is comforting to know when you take delivery that the up-front cash will cover a few useful extras above the £230,000 list price, such as carbon ceramic brakes at a cool £19,650, a special set of wheels for £2,250 and a “Flying B” mascot that, for £2,137, ducks out of danger but can be quickly coaxed back into its Kate Winslet position on the Brooklands’ prow.

The operative word, though, is “hurry” because the first of the limited production run of 550 Brooklands is delivered next month – it has the most powerful Bentley V8 engine ever and the most spacious rear cabin of any coupé in the world – with deposits already placed on the next 499 or so.

Although 550 may sound a worryingly large number to the inhabitants of the upper echelons of the motoring world where anything in double figures is regarded as mass production, there is no need to fret because each Brooklands will be individually equipped to ensure that it can be truly regarded as a one-off. “Buyers want the car they have specified to be truly ‘theirs’ – carrying their own, personal identity,” James Pillar, Bentley’s director of marketing communications, said. “Not one of the new Brooklands will be identical to any other.”

What a relief – and no need to worry about hordes of multimillionaires falling into showrooms like lemmings to emerge with a car that looks in every detail like yours.

Typically, members of the Brooklands brigade spend about £30,000 personalising a machine that is likely to sit alongside several others in garages far cleaner than hospital wards and that will lead a life not totally associated with daily drudge.

So for my car – to use for two whole days in Tuscany – I opted for Titan Grey paint; two colours of hide trim (Newmarket tan and anthracite) and dark stained Vavona veneer (£3,474 extra); the Sports Combination, which includes diamond quilted hide trim and silver painted wheels (£5,159); those must-have carbon ceramic retarders and, of course, the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t, mascot. Total cost £260,420.

Feeling sufficiently individual, I pushed the twin-turbocharged engine’s start button to stir 6.75litres of V8 into life, to sigh down the cypress-lined drive of a villa once owned by the Machiavellis (who also had a certain individuality) and set out for the Tuscan hills.

Based on the Arnage saloon and more closely the Azure convertible with carbon fibre body stiffening, the Brooklands is a new arrival in the sights of the super rich. According to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2007, by 2011, about 11 million people will be collectively worth £26 trillion. About 10 per cent of that will be spent on “investments of passion”, most of them luxury collectibles – cars, boats and jet aircraft. So Brooklands sales people do not need to be pushy.

The new Bentley cleverly flaunts affluence with understatement, and dignity with extremely high performance, including a 184mph top speed and 50 to 70mph acceleration in 2.4 seconds, to the accompaniment of a low back-pressure exhaust system with a sound range from a whisper to a lusty, menacing bull roar at variance with the aesthetic message of restrained elegance.

The car’s 2.7 tonne mass can be rushed up a mountain road, too, although I really wanted steering-wheel mounted gearshift paddles for this bit. Or its occupants can cruise in absolute comfort, idly counting the 43,507 stitches that hold the trim together, or consider the 130 hours it takes to hand-build the bodyshell. And they might even give fleeting consideration to the combined fuel consumption of 14.5 mpg and 465g/km CO2 emissions. Not exactly the stuff of green.

That is something that Dr Ulrich Eichhorn, engineering director of Bentley, is also considering. And at next month’s Geneva Motor Show he is expected to indicate how in future Bentley will combine bespoke luxury, gushing power and environmental responsibility in new models. Presumably in many shades of Brooklands Racing Green.

Specification

Car Bentley Brooklands
Engine 6.75litre 530bhp V8 producing 1,050Nm of torque
Transmission Six-speed automatic with tiptronic
Performance Top speed 184mph, 0-62mph 5.3sec
Fuel consumption (combined) 14.5mpg
CO2 emissions 465g/km
Price £230,000
On sale Now (but about 50 left)
Alternatives Bentley Continental GT About half the Brooklands’ price, rapid, impressive, but lacks real exclusivity Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG Very fast, highly competent and a mere £149,565.
Rolls-Royce’s projected production version of its 101EX concept with craftsmanship, performance and a likely price of about £300,000.