Bentleys for the boys: rich or poor

THE INAUGURAL Salon Privé sale in partnership with Silverstone Auctions was a real ‘I was there’ event. It took place during the concours’ swansong at Syon Park in 2014, and frenzied bidding by a pair of celebrities garnered acres of press coverage.

Radio and TV personality Chris Evans snapped up the headlining Daytona Spyder for £2.27 million, while Jay Kay led the charge for a gorgeous 1954 Bentley R Type Continental Fastback (sorry, Sports Saloon). Once the sums were done, the Bentley had set Jamiroquai’s frontman back £1,012,000. Yet rather than jaws hitting the floor, there was a mood of quiet appreciation that such a wonderful car was commanding the financial respect it deserved. After all, it wasn’t so many years earlier that the cognoscenti marvelled that something of such rarity, such pedigree and such presence – has any machine ever better pulled off being simultaneously stately and rakish? – could be bought for around £100,000. That was nothing short of an insult.

Prices have fallen back since – the ex-Elton John and Lord Sugar example made £366,666 at a recent Bonhams sale, still more than double what it sold for a decade earlier – but what that Brentford auction in 2014 did was to move the Fastback out of the shadows and into the mainstream, where it remains a fixture in just about every dream garage to this day. And rightly so.

It’s difficult to imagine that the massproduced next-generation Continental GT will ever climb to such dizzying financial heights but, having spent the past 15 years blighted by a less than flattering image based solely on its perceived customer base, the 2003-on model is equally unlikely ever to be much cheaper than it is right now. Even

Octane’s biggest critic of the GT’s driving dynamics conceded: ‘If you want to go insanely fast in a straight line, you can’t spend £25k better.’ That’s me sold.