MOTORING
‘If you can afford to buy a Bentley you
can afford to sate its voracious appetite for fuel’
The need for
Speed
The Bentley marque remains one of motoring’s most evocative. It doesn’t seem to matter to aficionados that it is, today, a British-registered company under German ownership. Don’t let its Teutonic parentage put you off - it’s as British behind the wheel as a Chesterfield settee is in a stately home, writes Nick Jones.
I drove the Bentley Continental about two years ago. It was the frugal V8 version that was only blisteringly quick and returned up to 36.7mpg on a run, 26mpg on the combined test. But let’s face facts. If you can
afford to buy a Bentley – take a peek at the prices of some of the optional extras mentioned below – you can afford to sate its voracious appetite for fuel. So why not have the more lustily,
and appropriately, named Speed version – after all, isn’t that what Bentley has always been all about? Bentley did not make its name
producing city cars, it has always evoked images of Le Mans and the Royal Air Force. The Continental GT punched
500bhp from its V8 and a 0-60mph sprint time of 4.6 seconds on the way to 180mph.
52 business network June 2016 I said at the time it was enough…
and if I’d never driven the turbocharged 5,993cc W12 I might still say it. But I have, and it isn’t. That five letter word – Speed – is
there for a reason. Speed is good. I have a need for Speed. The unique-to-VW (Bentley’s
parent) W12 engine – three banks of four cylinders on a single crankshaft – delivers 626bhp, a 0-60mph sprint of 4.2 seconds and a top speed of more than 200mph. It delivers all that punch in a car
that weighs well over two tons. All-wheel-drive, delivered
through an advanced traction control system and an eight-speed automatic gearbox help to harness the 605lb-ft of torque that starts to be fed in from just 1,700rpm. You can have a sequential
manual gearbox if you prefer, but with that degree of luxury and
power, why would you? As the rev counter nears the red
line you feel as though your innards are being hauled out through the back of the seat. Wonderful. Is this the nearest thing to what being a WW2 fighter pilot felt like? The car also has Dynamic Mode,
which allows for a degree of wheel slip if you feel like getting into the spirit of things and can afford to smoke the tyres – of course you can, you own a Bentley – and Continuous Damping Control, which can soften the ride on those occasions when you don’t want the fun. I’m not going to dwell on the
fuel consumption here, but nearly 20mpg doesn’t sound too bad for such a car. Carbon ceramic brakes are a
must-have in my opinion, but at £10,825 it’s an expensive options box to tick.
At first glance, the Speed doesn’t
look especially different from its ‘lesser’ siblings. But there are a few subtle tweaks. For a start, it’s a full centimetre
lower. It also has a new front bumper and new grille mesh, giving it a lower, squatter look at the front. To the rear, there is a bespoke
diffuser and spoiler, the latter rising from the boot only when the speed creeps up to the wrong side of the UK national limit – how about that for a flag to the police? Beautiful 21” multi-spoke wheels
fill the arches nicely. The overall effect, for me, makes
this a car to drool over. On the inside, an exercise in the
word luxury springs to mind with the new ‘small diamond’ trim gorgeous to behold. There is a three-spoke steering wheel, drilled
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