BENTLEY BEFITTING
Bentayga to Uva Mira
The name Bentley is synonymous with opulence as these luxury marques carry themselves with a sense of grace. After a road trip in the new Bentley Bentayga Diesel to Uva Mira Mountain Vineyards, where space and silence roam free on the slopes of the Helderberg Mountain Range, Wilhelm Loots discovered that the new addition to the Bentley legacy adds a new dimension to the ultimate luxuries of life – space and silence.
The Cape winelands are replete with routes and byways to surprise and delight the most seasoned road tripper, but none are as well suited for testing the most luxurious SUV in the world than a trip over Helshoogte and down the Banhoek valley towards Pniel, and on to Franschhoek before ascending the twisty Franschhoek Pass and dropping down to Theewaterskloof Dam, followed by a long sweeping arc past Villiersdorp towards the N2 and Sir Lowry’s Pass, before heading back towards Stellenbosch and our final destination, Uva Mira Mountain Vineyards. It is the road oft’ travelled by those in the know because the experience is always different, depending on the time of day, the weather, the stops along the way and, of course, your steed of choice.
So, on a perfect sun soaked winter’s day, our steed of choice was the Bentley Bentayga Diesel, the first diesel model in the history of Bentley, and arguably the most efficient and silent diesel ever created. At the heart of the fastest and most powerful luxury diesel SUV in the world beats an engineering marvel, an all-new, triplecharged, 4.0-litre, 32-valve V8 diesel engine. Developing 320 kw and 900 Nm of torque, the Bentayga Diesel is capable of a top speed of 270 km/h and can accelerate all of its 2.4 tons from 0-100 km/h in 4.8 seconds. Even more remarkable is the total lack of any of the usual irritations of diesel engines – noise, vibration, and pollution.
New clean technology ensures the lowest CO2 emissions of any Bentley, as well as a range of over 1,000 km, which would allow you to drive from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth, on a single tank … in virtual silence as the V8, much like a petrol engine, imparts only a sonorous and reassuring hum when summoned.