So I drove it for all those jobs for which I’d never normally think of using a Bentley: local errands, tip trips, the vet. Even if not, the idea of swanning about in a vast Bentley and it costing mere buttons just appeals to me. They would most likely appreciate the 500-plus-mile range, too. I know that the sort of person who can splurge over £150k on a car will not find themselves sweating over the fuel bills as might a freelance journalist, but it is also my experience that very few people got to be that rich by being casual with money. It didn’t take much time to calculate that as long as I always charged it at home, the energy cost of using the Bentayga for local journeys was remarkably similar to that of the 1.0-litre Toyota Aygo I own and which my daughters use when home. Driven so, a different kind of Bentley experience, one I’d never even considered before, became apparent. So I just relaxed and wafted, and while other SUVs may be better in certain other regards, in this and of those I’ve driven (I have yet to drive a Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce Cullinan), it’s bettered by none.Īnd when you’re powered by electricity alone, it is in a class of its own. But a grumbling V6? Not so much if, indeed, at all. If you have a thundering V8 at your disposal, you feel somewhat honour-bound to use it. And that decision was curiously liberating. It was as a result of this paucity of quality power that made it a car I never felt inclined to drive fast, despite the fact it handles better than anything so high and so heavy has a right. Both have V6 engines displacing close to three litres, but the Bentayga must make do with an earlier single- turbo engine while the Spur gets a later twin-turbo unit, lifting power from 443bhp to 536bhp. But having now driven the Bentley Flying Spur Hybrid, I wish the Bentayga had that car’s powertrain. I’m not going to dwell on the statistical side of things because you can see from the spec sheet how heavy and (relatively) slow this Bentayga is.
BENTLEY OPEN ROADS SKIN
And for those who doubt the value of long-term testing compared with conventional road testing for really getting under the skin of a car, well, there is a lot to be learned here: had I just done my standard road car assessment, the words that follow would have been very different.
Indeed, I would say as object lessons in the difference between driving a car and living with it, I’m not sure I’ve come across one more vivid. It has been fascinating, and far more so than I ever imagined. But the Bentley was with us for long enough to put almost 4000 miles under those elegant rims and to learn, first, whether it was still going to bleed me white despite the hybrid drive and, second, whether it would be worth it if it did. It wasn’t around for long – such things rarely are.
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