Riccardo Pozzoli | Mulsanne Turbo

Projects

Petrolhead dreams

Lake Maggiore

Afloat

“I have a group of close friends that are, unfortunately for all of us, real crazy petrolheads. We all share this great passion. I mean, we spend time and nights chatting. What do you want to buy? What's your next project?”

Riccardo Pozzoli shrugs. You get the impression he’s not unhappy to be part of a crazy petrolhead gang. A prolific entrepreneur, he’s the founder of strategic advisory firm Hyle Consulting and a consultant for Luxottica, where he is the creative director of the Persol brand.

But this internet-savvy digital native has an alter ego. Riccardo Pozzoli is a passionate, hardcore fan of all things hand-made and analogue. Especially if they have an engine.

Away from the design studios and the boardrooms, Riccardo Pozzoli, wife Gabrielle and their two young children relax in their home close to the shores of Lake Maggiore. Awaiting them on the water, a meticulously restored 1971 wooden hulled powerboat. And transporting him from house to slipway? A 1985 Mulsanne Turbo, jacked up by a couple of inches, shod with BF Goodrich off-road tyres and beefed-up safari rally style.

What links the two projects? “Well, they both have British engines…” Pozzoli ‘s Canav Rudy 10-metre motor cruiser, which he found in near derelict condition, is powered by twin Perkins diesel engines. More than a year of dedicated work by a hand-picked team saw the boat, which has a Navaltecnica hull designed by Renato “Sonny” Levi, restored to its former glory. Choosing a fibreglass-hulled modern cruiser would have been far simpler. But Pozzoli is a purist.

“The boat had been stationary for 15 years. If we had put her in the water as she was, she would have sunk. We redid practically everything: fascias, chrome, interior…a complete restoration from top to bottom.” He’s especially proud of the upholstery. As an ambassador for Italian luxury clothing brand Loro Piana, Riccardo Pozzoli was permitted to use a fabric designed for the exclusive St Tropez beach club La Réserve.

Today, the lacquered mahogany woodwork and re-chromed controls glint in the late autumn sunlight on Lake Maggiore, as the twin diesel engines chug quietly below the decking. Pozzoli points out the homes of some of his high-profile neighbours along the shoreline.

Restoring a 50-year-old wooden powerboat would be enough of a project for most people. But awaiting us on the slipway is another of Pozzoli’s ‘crazy’ ideas. A 1985 Bentley Mulsanne Turbo.

Back story

‘Let’s have some fun’

Falling in love

The impetus to turbocharge Bentley’s 6.75-litre V8 engine came in the late ‘70s from CEO David Plaistow, with these words to chief engineer John Hollings: “Let’s have some fun”. The Mulsanne Turbo, launched in 1982, certainly put a smile on a lot of Bentley owners’ faces. A Garrett AiResearch turbocharger provided a 50% increase in engine power, cutting the 0-60mph time down to exactly seven seconds, a startling turn of speed for a 2.3 tonne luxury saloon. Motoring magazines hailed ‘the return of the Blower Bentley’.

The Mulsanne Turbo was produced until 1985, when it was replaced by the Turbo R, which featured improvements to handling and roadholding. Though the Turbo R outsold its predecessor, it was the Mulsanne Turbo that started a long-awaited renaissance for Bentley, putting performance back at the heart of the brand.

Riccardo Pozzoli’s Mulsanne Turbo was sitting in a Milan showroom when he came across it. “I’ve always loved classic British cars,” he explains. “Maybe they're not perfect. But they are fun, they are charming and they are elegant without sacrificing their sporty attitude.”

“I wanted something unique and I had the idea to make a safari rally car. The two ideas kind of overlapped. I said OK; I want a Bentley, and I want a rally car. I started looking for a Bentley that was good mechanically but maybe not perfect in the body.” The Mulsanne Turbo was no concours queen, but it was mechanically sound. “When I drove a Bentley for the first time I wondered why I never bought one before, you know? I said this is amazing, feeling the torque, the engine and the comfort. I just said, I want this car.”

On the road

Safari Bentley

Hairpins

Relish the journey

The Mulsanne Turbo’s paintwork was patinated and faded, which suited the look Pozzoli had in mind. He had the bonnet and boot painted matt black; the Speedline alloy wheels, shod with BF Goodrich off-road tyres, received the same treatment. A prominent tow bracket and yellow engine fan, visible through the mesh grille, completed the rally-style makeover. But it’s the suspension, raised around 2 inches to clear the tyres, that distinguishes Riccardo Pozzoli’s rally-style Mulsanne Turbo from its origins as a luxury limousine.

“The mechanicals were perfect, including the self-levelling hydraulic suspension. Inside, the front seats had sagged so I had them replaced. But that’s all.”

With its rugged looks and classic Bentley interior, the rally Mulsanne Turbo has a dual character Pozzoli loves. The calm and the storm, all in one car.

Time to leave the shores of Lake Maggiore and head up into the hills. Once free of traffic, Pozzoli uses the Bentley’s full performance. Puffs of tyre smoke and the sound of rubber breaking traction punctuate the drive. There’s even time for an impromptu spot of off-roading, as he persuades the 40-year-old Bentley to drift.

“In the beginning, when you buy a 6.75-litre V8 turbo, you drive properly. Then you start realising, maybe I can slow down. It has so much torque that when you shift in drive and leave the accelerator the car is still doing 30 kilometres per hour.”

A grin. “I chill down, it's relaxing. Yeah, I love it. But then you know that when you want to push a bit more on the throttle, you're going to have your adrenaline shot.”

It’s late afternoon, and the Bentley needs a fuel stop. Time for some final thoughts on the two sides of Riccardo Pozzoli: the digital native and the analogue lover.

“I was a teenager in 2000, at the start of the digital revolution, so I jumped on it. I loved the sense of community, meeting people from different places all around the world. Digital communication can change everything in the way you interact with people.”

“And yet…I really feel like nowadays sometimes we are a bit too focused on the destination and not enough on the journey. If you just need to go from one place to another, fair enough. But if you want to enjoy the journey, you need something that pushes you to live it. The clutch, the engine, the exhaust, whatever. A car like this is 100% analogue. That really gives you the pleasure of driving, you know?”