FAST, NOT FURIOUS
Driving the world’s fleetest four-door, the Flying Spur W12 S
Bentley has lined up four of its current models, in which we’re invited to hurtle – in a gentlemanly kind of way, of course – around the highways and byways of Cheshire. In the past I’ve driven three of them extensively, but fortunately there’s one I haven’t – and I’m itching to try it.
Launched in September last year, the Flying Spur W12 S is the ultra-highperformance version of Bentley’s big, Continental-based four-door grand tourer. With blacked-out brightwork, optional 21-inch directional five-spoke alloys and dark-tint lamp glasses front and rear, it appears to sit lower on the tarmac than the standard car and exudes a menacing – almost gangster – attitude that’s all too appropriate considering the output of its 6-litre, 12-cylinder motor has been boosted to 626bhp, with torque raised to 820Nm at just 2,000 revs.
Such intemperate urge, of course, means that the W12 S is unfeasibly fast for a four-door, four-seat car of limousine proportions and weight. How unfeasible? Well, how about a 0-100km/ h time of 4.5 seconds and a maximum of 325 (which, for the kind of unreconstructed traditionalist who often appreciates Bentleys, translates to a genuine 202mph)?
It certainly feels potentially every bit as rapid as that when I kick hard on the drilledaluminium accelerator pedal and, with a subdued but nonetheless audible roar, the car leaps forward with an alacrity that belies its juggernaut proportions. Although the Continental GT shares much of its running gear, the Spur is a considerably bigger car – and with three people on board it weighs a lot nearer three tonnes than two. I’m suitably impressed, but as this is the UK, where there are almost as many speed cameras on the roads as cars, I’m also disinclined to explore its performance parameters too assiduously.
To cope with the increased power, Bentley has uprated the suspension for increased agility and body control, but this is still evidently a most luxurious motor car that wafts its passengers in a grace, refinement and comfort. There is, however, the reassuring option of carbon-ceramic brake rotors, which something tells me may come in handy when tanking down the autobahn at speeds approaching (or even exceeding) five kilometres a minute.
Half an hour isn’t much time in which to form a wholly reliable opinion of anything, but my brief encounter with this ultra Spur leaves me in awe. Somehow the W12 suits the Flying Spur better than it does the Continental, which is more nimble with a 4-litre V8 under its bonnet. In the W12 S, by contrast, the 12-cylinder feels like the real deal – indeed, I’m convinced this variant is the car the Spur should have been all along. Clichés involving iron fists and velvet gloves come unavoidably to mind, and I know I want to drive it again.