Bentley Continental Flying Spur: Test driven!

"Canadian Driver" had the chance to make a test drive with the Bentley Continental Flying Spur.

Thanks to a gentlemen's agreement that has long stood between the major German automakers, top speeds of even these high-end missiles are electronically limited to 250 km/h. What good is all that power and performance if, in terms of bragging rights, your car's not capable of outrunning the neighbour's Lexus LS430?

In simple terms, this is why you need to have a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. Not only does its twin-turbocharged, 6-litre W12 engine produce a whopping 552 horsepower; not only does it put this power to the ground through all four of its huge 19-inch wheels; but you can, provided the road is long enough and straight enough, power straight past all of those other pitiful captains of industry, straining against the speed limiters of their so-called V12 "flagships". Given enough space, the Flying Spur will not only power right past 250 km/h, but also right past 300 km/h. In fact, a company test driver on an Italian track managed 334 km/h before the big sedan ran out of steam. That's 208 mph!

The Flying Spur's performance is remarkable in and of itself, but what's even more impressive is how easy it is to pile on such huge velocities. For a car that weighs more than 5000 pounds, the way it leaps away from stoplights is nothing short of remarkable - it feels like a freight train's rear-ended you into the next block. On city streets and at (reasonable) highway speeds, thumping, pass-15-cars-in-a-row acceleration is always available thanks to an impressive lack of turbo lag and a slick-shifting six-speed automatic. While the gearbox may occasionally fluff the second-to-third upshift at lower speeds (unless you use the paddles behind the steering wheel to manually select first, it starts in second), the transmission always picks the right gear once you're moving, and its beautifully smooth changes really contribute to the jet-propelled sensations you get at speed.

In logical terms, buying a car as expensive as a Flying Spur is pretty senseless when you can get the same features and options in cars costing up to $100,000 less. But there are indeed customers out there that are not only ready, but eager, to move up from a top-end mass-market machine into something a little more expensive, a little more exclusive, and (if only for bragging rights) a lot faster. The Flying Spur gives them that, and brings with it a sense of occasion - from its custom-built buying process to the smell of the leather to the way it just flies when you lean into the throttle - that more, uh, pedestrian, luxury cars don't have. The new Bentley sedan is bigger than they are, faster than they are, and just plain cooler than they are.

GermanCarBlog, Bentley Continental Flying Spur

Source: Canadian Driver

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