Like a night out with a rock star or a kick around with an international footballer, a weekend in a luxury car is one of those experiences that lives between your bedroom walls and your all too plentiful daydreams.
Whether you’re positioned in the driver’s seat or sat in the back barking instructions at a man in a flat cap, the scale of thought put into the interior and seating is immediately evident . It’s a marked achievement to make a seat feel spacious, yet at the same time compact enough to simulate a racing seat, but Bentley have manage it beautifully here. Adding to that feeling is the steering wheel boasting with shift paddles that urge you to commentate on your own driving while attacking corners.
With a 0-100 km/h of 4.5 seconds (bear in mind the car weighs two and a half tonnes), the unavoidable pinning back into your seat that happens at these levels of acceleration is much more tolerable thanks to the fact that the seat doubles as a massage chair, adding an extra level of comfort to an already pleasant ride.
One fact that should be noted with a focus on the Middle East is that the seats are also air-con vented, something that should never go underestimated in these climates, and a feature that you could get an almost unanimous agreement on if proposed as law.
The Flying Spur features suspension settings from full sport to comfort, with the difference noticeable but never uncomfortable. The car also has a slightly wider wheel base than the old model, and softer springs, creating a slightly more balanced and smoother ride. A facet that was noticeable the whole way through our hour and a half journey, making it feel a heck of a lot less.
For those with an affinity towards the technological installations, one particular highlight can be found in the touch screen on the achingly polished dashboard, which allows you to control the previously mentioned suspension settings as well as a whole host of others with the flick of a finger. The back, if you’ve chosen the additional extra, features ten inch screens in the back of the front seats, with a touch screen controller allowing for control over the heating or cooling of the back seats, as well as of course the selection of television channels.
The miles per gallon will never match up to the more environmentally conscious automobiles, but it was never supposed to. Other numbers that have to be mentioned are six, two and twelve. The Bentley boasts a 6 litre twin turbo W12 engine, and those numbers add up to a top speed of just over 320km/h.
The Bentley models have always been cars that you have to want, for any reason from the unlikely; that you want to emulate Wayne Rooney, or the likely; you want sheer comfort and performance and you’re willing to pay for it. The new Flying Spur is no different, a definite improvement on the previous model and another beautifully refined string to the luxury British car maker’s bow.
Words by Sam Turner