Bentley is flash but lacks class
The GT speed is still too flashy for its own good
Like most people with a national TV or radio show, I was well and truly Geldof ’d this week, when Bob brought in his new charity song to flog last Monday morning. Sure, we all know when put under the microscope that it makes even less sense this time than it did way back in 1984. And if Bastille and Ed Sheeran had just given the money it cost them to fly in from their respective world tours that might well have raised nearly as much. But Bob’s always good for business, and so we all joined in.
What I can’t abide, however, are those wannabe Paxmans who predictably wound Bob up just so he would ‘potty-mouth’ live on air and they could then claim to have ‘had to’ throw him off their various broadcasts. Please, if you want to make your stock-in-trade posing non-agenda-specific questions, then show some consistency and never again ask a politician about anything to do with running the country, and instead bark repeatedly: ‘ But all you want to do is get re-elected, isn’t it?’
I was invited to attend the recording of Band Aid 30, but was double-booked with a much more pressing commitment afoot: namely, driving up to see my daughter Jade and her husband Callum in Cheshire, to check out how their new house is coming along before the bump she’s currently sporting disappears and all hell breaks loose, somewhere around December 29.
Although when I say I drove up north, what I actually mean is that Tash, soon to be ‘Granny’ (eek), did all the driving while Noah, Eli and I spent most of the journey trying not to eat all the tinned salmon sandwiches this side of Birmingham. This wasn’t easy, as we were stuck in the car for the next SEVEN hours for a trip that should take no more than four. With no accidents, no notable roadworks, no lane restrictions. And it could have been so much worse, had my wife not pooh-poohed my earlier suggestion that we take this week’s test car instead of our trusty Range Rover. Going nowhere fast for a third of a day in one of the most family-friendly vehicles known to mankind is not much fun, but better than going nowhere fast in a flash supercar with the kids scrunched up in the dark and claustrophobic (albeit luxurious) recesses of a selfish fastback like the new Bentley GT Speed. Thankfully, then, this road-test had to wait until this week proper.
Upon which, the first thing that struck me about her is the new, softer and much lovelier sculptured profile lines. She still remains far too big and wide for her own good, but at least Bentley has begun to move away from trying to appeal to overpaid footballers towards those of us simply having a midlife crisis There’s still far too much of a Loadsamoney feel about her, but one senses that she’s at least on her way back to commanding respectful admiration, as opposed to inciting resentful alienation.
Bear in mind also that this new gal comes with a genetic drink problem. At times I swear the needle on the petrol gauge was moving with more alacrity than the second hand on the elegant Breitling dashboard clock.
That said, she is packing some stunning performance under her skirt, and as we know, fuelling rocket ships doesn’t come cheap. She really is stonkingly fast and muscly with it. I thought I was getting furious wheelspin in almost every gear, until I figured out it was more likely monumental turbo lag.
Brakes, on the other hand, were top of the class as was the supersmooth gearbox, although much more in normal Drive mode than Sport mode when things felt a little more unrefined. Handling was not dissimilar, firm and reassuring around town but noticeably more unsettled out on the open road.
Sitting in the cockpit was a joy, thanks to an almost perfect driving position – that was until I found myself having to reach down for the column stalks, which are in a very odd low position.
This awkwardness is exacerbated by the large sticky-out gearshift paddles, themselves an unfathomable reach away from the pilot’s grasping fingers.
Other niggles include the clumsy and removable Bentley sunglasses case in the middle of the central console, and the lamentable
touchscreen, which suffers from a similar-length delay to those Skype news reports where the correspondent is permanently out of focus.
The other big in-car disappointment is the sound system. No matter how much I played around with the settings, it was like listening to music with a goldfish bowl on my head.
I’m not sure what it says about a topof-the-range supercar when I find myself finishing with the fact that one of the best bits about the GT Speed is how humungous the boot is. I suppose this might be because whereas Bentleys were the acceptable face of luxury super-sport motoring for the discerning gentleman for ages, more recently they have fallen into the trap of being flash and crass.
The good news is that this car shows a deliberate intent to get back to what Bentleys were and should be about. It’s just a shame that one of our greatest marques is having to be un-rebranded when it never needed rebranding in the first place.