THE WINNER

“The key to the Bentayga’s success? It performed well in categories we didn’t expect”

The numbers have spoken, we have a winner... and, if we’re honest, it’s a shock result. Not least because it’s a car only a microscopic percentage of the population will actually be able to aford. Costs were taken into account, of course, but given that for one Bentayga diesel you can have two Audi SQ7s, two-and-a-half Jaguar F-Paces, four Alfa Romeo Stelvios, two Land Rover Discoverys, fve Peugeot 3008s, fve Skoda Kodiaqs or nine Dacia Dusters, they probably should have had more weighting.

You see, that’s the problem with a verdict that takes opinion largely out of it – it throws up… unusual results. Perhaps the spread of tests unfairly favoured the fast and expensive stuf, perhaps we shouldn’t be let loose with a calculator, either way when you look at what we’d choose to take home below, it’s probably the wrong result. But in typically stubborn TG fashion, we’re sticking with it.

The key to the Bentley’s success? It performed well in categories we didn’t expect. Its looks are challenging at best, yet the fair folk of Leicester told us by a landslide that it was the one they would take home. And then, to our astonishment, when the going got muddy it kicked of its Gucci loafers and got stuck in.

The reality is that the Kodiaq and Disco both remain better family SUVs than the Bentayga, and the Alfa handles better, the Duster is remarkable for the money and the F-Pace is as rounded as ever. In fact, all our contenders were class leaders at the start of the test and they still are, but it’s the Bentley that takes the points victory. In hindsight, our points system probably needs an MoT.