|
From YourSITE.com Auto Test Drives
In fairy tales the story traditionally starts with “ once upon a time “. Well, once upon a time Britain had a robust auto industry. Even in the 1960s the list was long and in parts distinguished. Rolls Royce, Bentley, Jaguar, Rover, Ford, Triumph, MG, Riley, Lotus, Vauxhall, Sunbeam, Hillman and many others. Now, 40 odd years later the list is much shorter and almost exclusively in foreign hands. Ford Motor Company was of course part of Ford USA but the rest were mostly part of British Leyland, a most unfortunate conglomerate which lurched from crisis to crisis. In 2005 British Leyland is history, the last remnants – Rover/MG are currently in the process of being sold either as a going concern (unlikely) or as a source of cheap machine tools and valuable real estate.
Luckily the two greatest names, Rolls Royce and Bentley have been saved by the Germans of all people! There is something ironic about the makers of Spitfire engines being in German hands but I suppose young people would never make that association.
The good news is that both Rolls and Bentley are thriving. When Volkswagen bought Bentley they were under the impression that Rolls would be part of the deal. Little did they know that the name Rolls actually belonged to BMW so after a great deal of argy – bargy (RG a very British expression, see Oxford dictionary) VW had to settle for just Bentley. Luckily for them the Crewe factory came with the deal while BMW had no option but to build a brand new factory near Goodwood in the South of England.
Having purchased Bentley, VW engineers sat down to take a long look at their parts bin as the last thing they wanted to do was to pay a fortune to BMW for their V12 engines. As far as the Bentley Continental GT is concerned the policeman in his regulation Ford Crown Victoria could not have been more pleasant. Before I could say anything beyond “excuse me office” he very gently interrupted by saying “you are looking for the Ritz Carlton which is half a mile back. Turn left at the first set of traffic lights and you’ll be there in no time”.
He was right of course. Tea at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay sounded like a very nice way to start a road test, especially if the car happened to be a $160 thousand dollar 195 miles per hour Bentley Continental. If I had any doubts about its presence these were soon dispelled by John, the man in charge of valets. There was a long line of cars waiting to unload their passengers and luggage but a bit like the Red Sea, the road majestically opened as I was waved very firmly into pole position. “Welcome to the Ritz Carlton Sir, just leave the keys with us, we’ll take care of the car.” And they did just that. There is a huge car park about 100 yards down the road full of BMWs, Jaguars and other “lesser” makes but when we returned after a very nice cup of Earl Gray the Bentley from was right there, by the door waiting to whisk us to Monterey a mere 95 miles away. When I say waiting it wasn’t a matter of telling someone to get the car, the Bentley was parked just yards from where we left it and in a way this sums it all up. “We know our cars” added one of the valets as he handed over the keys, “believe me, we’ve seen everything from Maybachs to Mazdas, but this one is special”.
After about 300 miles in the very comfortable driving seat – I realized what he was talking about. The Bentley is not just about money, it is also about taste. While it has presence it cannot, by any stretch of the imagination be called ostentatious. Imposing yes, I am rich, get out of my way aggressive it most certainly is not.
This is what W.O. Bentley had to say some 83 years ago: “while it would offer great comfort and unquestioned luxury as it went about its daily business, so also would it possess a thinly veiled ability to turn into something special at any moment”. Precisely. The 522-bhp 6.0 liter W-12 engine does just that. Highway 1 along the Pacific Ocean is mostly double yellow lines with just the odd passing lane here and there. In the Bentley’s case that was all I needed. Without revving the living daylight out of the engine I simply pressed gently on the loud pedal and in contrast to the message often typed into wing mirrors about other cars maybe nearer than they appear the opposite was true. Within seconds these were just little specs on the horizon. The car may weigh 5353 pounds but with a 0-60 figure in under 5 seconds passing was no more than a mere formality. Did I get anywhere near its top speed of just under 200 miles per hour? Certainly not. I did, however, get up to 120 miles per hour on a disused airfield. Even at that speed the Bentley was solid as a rock.
The engine, a rather special one is a W12 made up of two 15-degree V6s joined by a common crankshaft. So far it is similar to VW-Audi’s Phaeton and A8 but Bentley adds its own cylinder heads with a specific combustion-chamber shape, adds twin turbos and intercoolers plus lots of ECU software. How they manage to squeeze all this into the Bentley’s relatively short nose I’ll never know and to be fair I would not volunteer to fix anything should it go wrong.
For many, many years Rolls-Royce and Bentley were made on the same production lines in Crewe, England. At times the cars were almost identical with slightly sportier suspensions on the Bentley. A few years ago (1988 to be precise) Volkswagen bought the group or so it thought. Apparently the name Rolls-Royce was owned by BMW of all people and as the two could not agree on a joint venture Bentley stayed in Crewe while BMW built an absolutely beautiful, state of the art plant for the new Rolls in Goodwood, near the famous race track where Stirling Moss nearly lost his life back in the 60’s. I’ve driven the new Rolls and while it is very nice it just isn’t me whereas the Bentley most definitely would be had I $160,000 or so thousand to spare. On the road the car just glides thanks to its immense power and while Rolls used to advertise their cars with the slogan “ at 60 miles per hour the loudest noise is the ticking of the clock”, in the Bentley the Breitling clock is silent so at 60 the loudest sound is Beethoven’s violin concerto. The clarity was uncanny, probably the best I’ve ever come across in a car.
Silly as it may sound the Bentley is remarkably good value among supercars. This may seem like an outrageous thing to say, after all most people are lucky to earn a third of what the Bentley costs but the truth is that there are an awful lot of rich folks out there. Many got there by shady deals as all the court cases will testify or by playing basketball for totally ludicrous amounts but as far as car dealers are concerned they are only interested in one thing – the deal. And as deals go the Bentley is a good deal. Ferrari’s 612 costs a cool one hundred thousand dollars more and is not readily available whereas the Bentley is. Ferrari’s total production is just about 5000 cars a year while Bentley makes that number of GTs. I see Aston Marin as a potential rival but Astons are more of a pure sports car rather than a grand tourer. Incidentally a four-door version has just been announced and will be available this fall.
You must be wondering by now if there was anything wrong with the Bentley or was I so carried away by its majestic progress that I lost my judgment. Of course there were. First of all it is most definitely not a four seater. Two plus two children – yes, four grown-ups definitely not. The other, rather curious problem is the lack of space in the trunk. If ever a car was made with well to do golfers in mind this Bentley has to be it. Yet, while we managed to squeeze the two sets in, the drivers had to be taken out of the bags and loaded separately. Hardly the end of the World, but surprising nevertheless. Having to put the golf bags in at an angle also made it impossible to put in suitcases, which ended up on the back seat.
All in all, an exceptional automobile, which, driven sensibly certainly good for 300 plus miles without stopping. At legal speeds we got a perfectly acceptable 18 miles per gallon, more than several SUVs. In a word – unforgettable.
© Copyright 2001 by YourSITE.com |
