As managing director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in the early 1980s under the Vickers ownership, David Plastow could see the potential in the Bentley brand.

[1] It had been neglected for the previous 15 years and made up only a very small percentage of the company's sales at that time, particularly outside the UK in important markets such as the USA.

[4] A fibreglass mock up of the design was displayed at the 1985 Geneva Motor Show as Rolls-Royce's "Project 90" concept of a future Bentley coupé.

[5] The concept was met with an enthusiastic reception, but the Project 90 design was largely shelved as the company began to work towards a replacement for the Rolls-Royce Corniche.

The shape of the car was very different from the somewhat slab sided four-door SZ Rolls-Royce and Bentley of the time and offered a much improved coefficient of drag of Cd=0.37.

The Continental R also featured roof-cut door frames, a necessity to allow easier access into the car which had a lower roofline than its four-door saloon contemporaries.

The finished car effectively disguises its huge dimensions (the Continental R is around 4-inch longer than a 2013 long wheelbase Mercedes S Class).

Handel's Zadok the Priest music was chosen for the launch of the new model which was originally written for King George II's coronation in 1727.

[7] Since its launch in 1991, the 6.75 L Garrett-turbocharged V8 engine from the Turbo R was chosen for use in the Continental R. In early cars (produced from 1991 to 1993) power output of 325 hp (242 kW; 330 PS) at 4,000 rpm and peak torque of 610 N⋅m (450 lb⋅ft) at 2,000 rpm was available, although this was always estimated as at that time, Rolls-Royce still had a policy of not supplying official figures, preferring to describe power output simply as "sufficient".

The car used the new 4-speed GM 4L80-E automatic transmission which had been exhaustively tested by Rolls-Royce, over 1,609,344 km (1,000,000 miles), and modified by them to deliver very high levels of refinement.

[11] The car featured self-levelling hydraulic suspension (with adaptive ride/Automatic Ride Control) and ventilated disc brakes at the front with twin calipers.

Engine management was done via the MK-Motronic digital fuel injection with fully mapped ignition control system.

All cars were equipped with a centre console mounted electronic gear selector (the first time Rolls-Royce had made a car without the autobox selector on the steering column), with a Sport button to simultaneously adjust gearbox mapping and stiffen the suspension for more aggressive driving and handling.

For such a large and heavy car, the Continental R was repeatedly acknowledged by road testers and journalists as displaying superb handling characteristics at high speeds.

This lead British publication Autocar to suggest, when road testing the 1996 Continental R in August 1995, that the gearbox would've been destroyed due to the enormous levels of low down torque available.

Number six was fitted with the full-spec Continental T engine that just became available in 1998 with a power output of 420 hp (313 kW; 426 PS) and a maximum torque of 881 N⋅m (650 lb⋅ft).

The Continental T has a more athletic outward appearance due to a 102 mm (4 in) shorter wheelbase and extended front and rear wheel arches.

Modified shock absorbers in combination with stiffer torsion bars (front +40%, rear +20%) increased the Continental's handling ability.

Code named "Blackpool cars",[18] these were highly bespoke automobiles, generally based on the Continental R, but with unique body shells often costing several million pounds to tool up, from which a handful of examples would be made.

[19] The best known customer for these cars was the Sultan of Brunei who had numerous unique automobiles made reportedly placing orders worth tens of millions of pounds with Rolls-Royce during this period.