Life with the Continental
▶ Even after running the Flying Spur for a few months, I still can’t quite work out whether it’s a luxurious limo with an unlikely turn of speed or a massively capable GT car with an unlikely number of doors. Which naturally means that in some ways it’s the best of both worlds and in other ways the worst.
It’s fast, of that there’s no doubt but in truth that’s achieved at the expense of refinement: the engine note is always present albeit distant and it’s busier-sounding than for example a Jaguar V12. Under hard acceleration it develops a deep bellow which of course is entirely appropriate for the two-door GT but seems odd in the four-door Spur.
With all-wheel-drive, the handling is initially a touch nose-heavy in the old-school Audi way and you don’t have to push it too hard before the two-and-a-half tonne weight makes itself felt, but its ultimate limits are far higher than a sensible driver would want to explore on public roads.
The air suspension gives the car a serene motorway ride but at urban speeds the refinement is frankly disappointing and nothing like as good as the contemporary Jaguar.
Again, the combination of hefty kerb weight, 20-inch rims and air struts means the big Bentley thumps through potholes and jolts across expansion joints.
As for the practicalities, well you don’t buy a car with a 6-litre twin-turbo W12-engine and expect the economy of a diesel Passat – an average of 10mpg in daily use does render the car somewhat impractical as a daily driver, even if it does creep over 20mpg on a run. On the plus side, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much scope there is for the enthusiastic Diy-minded owner to keep the running costs down, which of course goes some way towards offsetting the savage thirst.
In the end, perhaps the best verdict on the Flying Spur comes not from me but from my teenage children: my 19-year-old son, whose daily driver is a BMW 330Ci, has been roped in for various photoshoot driving duties and always jumps at the chance to pilot the Bentley. My 16-year-old daughter on the other hand has banned me from ever picking her up from school in “that funeral car.” Mars and Venus, eh?