| Road Test Bentley Continetal GT |
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The trouble is that so many cars - Bentleys included - invite you to play with all these goodies, instead of the car just getting on with it under the surface and letting you believe you're the sort of driver capable of exploiting this much power and performance without getting into desperate trouble. Another of the technological tricks is for the rear spoiler to deploy at around 100mph (at least I think it was at that speed I was a bit busy concentrating on the road ahead at the time). Porsche used to do that, but they swiftly brought the point of elevation down below 70mph when aggrieved customers pointed out that the cops had started looking for the tell-talesigns of transgression. Will Bentley follow suit? I've just read a road test of this car in my local free-sheet newspaper (!) where the writer whinges both about the cost of filling up and the fuel consumption. Of course, if you can afford the car, you're not going to be worried about loose change for fuel, are you? Was it Bentley-owning Alan Clark who said you weren't rich until you could live on the interest on the interest?
However, I have to say that a leisurely waft down from Oxford to Brighton on a cruise control setting not unadjacent to 85mph resulted in over 21mpg not at all bad when you consider the weight and engine size. Price: £115,000
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And, as always, you are probably quicker leaving the automatic to do it all by itself. If Bentley has spent millions sorting out which damper settings, launch control, ride height, throttle control, braking distribution and gear ratio are right for any given situation you can bet your bottom dollar the car will be doing it a damn sight better on it's own than you can.
