This one should neither be judged by normal standards nor is it a sports car. It is a Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed and it is unique.
It has the presence and luxury normally associated with a car that costs more than a house and an engagingly mischievous ability to show a clean pair of perfectly-manicured heels making it, fleetingly and in passing, to many a “sports” car. And it does it with no sense of fuss at all, rather in the manner an Olympic athlete decked out in his sartorial finest rolling up his shirtsleeves for a demonstration sprint at school sports day; decorous, surprisingly fast and positively dripping style.
The Speed comes with bragging rights of it being the world’s fastest four-door sedan — the result of Bentley’s 100-year heritage and roots in motor sport.
The power and pace of the Flying Spur Speed, which weighs in at a substantial 2,475 kg, needs a special combination of suspension and tire. Bentley used unique 9.5Jx20 multispoke alloy wheels with bespoke Pirelli P-Zero performance tires and achieved a ride that is quiet on well paved asphalt but cannot absorb or eliminate the noise of every bump on less well prepared surfaces. The background noise is such that one would expect from a high performance sedan. Wind noise, however, is exceptionally low.
The comfortable ride is all the more remarkable because the Flying Spur Speed can swing through a corner producing .86 G and bring the car to a halt from 112 kmh in 51 meters.
Although not a car you can hurl about, when the suspension is set to the hardest ride and the car’s ride height is at its lowest, the judicious use of the paddle shifters and an eager right foot can produce a thrilling ride up a twisting escarpment road and leave most other traffic comparatively tottering round the bends.
Air suspension and computer-controlled shock absorbers produce fractionally more noise than an all out luxury sedan. Having said that, at 150 kph the driver can talk to rear seat passengers without raising his voice — we are splitting hair, here! The makers achieved a 50 percent reduction in noise levels in wind and road noise levels thanks to a new, tri-laminate underbody blanket and the use of side and rear laminated glass.
To slow the car, Bentley has fitted 405mm ventilated front brake discs, the largest on any production passenger car on sale today, to provide supplementary muscle to the 335mm rear discs.
Despite the extra length and additional sheet metal, the use of alloy instead of steel for the Flying Spur’s rear subframe means that it’s only 95kg heavier than the two door GT, while the sedan’s longer shape gives it a drag coefficient of 0.31 to the coupe’s 0.32 and contributes to its supercar-challenging acceleration time and 314kmh top speed.
The layout of the cabin follows the tested dual-binnacle theme dressed in mirror-imaged wood veneers of plain finishes that challenges belief that this is hand-finished wood. The weighted roller-blind for example is a triumph of cabinet-making skills, the solid wood slats boned, as all the other wood surfaces are, to aluminum to avoid distortion.
Placed front and center on the dash is a Breitling timepiece, flanked by a steering wheel in hand-stitched leather, stainless-steel pedals and footrest, and chrome “organ-stop” pulls for the air vents. The Continental Flying Spur is also available with an adaptive cruise control system as well and a premium Naim audio system with a 1,100-watt amplifier, one of the most powerful units offered in a production car.
I wish that the atavistic note struck by the organ-stop pulls had been continued a little further into the main control suite. Almost everything in the car is managed via the screen on the central console. Very useful it is too for example running a vehicle check (including tire pressure) or operating the computer-controlled suspension. A bit of a dinosaur I do not want to take my eyes off the road when adjusting something as basic as the air conditioning — a couple of knurled aluminum knobs for fan and temperature would be just right.
That said, about half of Bentleys ordered are bespoke to some degree and should exquisitely machined controls be what you wish, they will be provided as will virtually any other of the trims and appointments in the interior.
An annoying feature, and optional extra, is the adaptive cruise control. I never found out how to switch it off — assuming that was possible. The result was that set at a legal 118kmh on the Makkah Highway, the car would brake heavily on its engine retarder as Daud Al Dangerous swerved from an inside lane into what Nanny, as the thing became known, considered to be a threatening position. The chaps a few meters behind awoke with a start as at one point with Nanny in charge we had slowed to 55 kmh — which only encouraged Daud’s family to join in the fun by piling into the “safe” space.
This is a wonderful car to experience. It could be seen as neither sports car nor luxury limousine. That, however, would be a shortsighted view. It is a supremely comfortable town and long-range cruising vehicle in the true Gran Turismo tradition. However, a press of a couple of buttons and a spin of the central control knob and the car transforms into Brooklands banking burner with lashings of style.
