Bentley has listened hard to what its customers want, with very pleasing results, writes Jacqui Madelin
KEY POINTS:
How to make a $350,000 car better? Cutting the price is out - for the rich, cheaper isn't always good. You could make it more luxurious. Or faster, or fatten the options list to ever more grandiose extremes.
Or, if you're Bentley, do all three. Customer feedback called
for a comfier Flying Spur. A faster Flying Spur. And a greater ability to personalise the car, much as owners of the bigger Arnage can through Bentley's Mulliner bespoke department.
The decision to provide both a standard Spur and the faster Speed variant is part of a pre-emptive strike on incoming models entering a formerly uncrowded class, with the smaller RR4 Rolls-Royce coming soon, along with Porsche's Panamerica and Aston Martin's Rapide.
But if the cars we drove in Massachusetts are anything to go by, Bentley's sales aren't under threat.
The US seems an odd place to launch a quintessentially British brand, albeit one owned by VW. But the US is a big market for Bentley.
It wasn't always thus. From 1957 to 1966 only 32 of the first Flying Spurs sold there, compared with 214 in the UK. Priced at 8034 back then - equivalent to 12 Morris Minors - this Bentley was very much a British car, though it did travel. One reached Australia - and two landed here. We love our cars ...
That hasn't changed, but the market has. Russia, South Korea and China all buy Bentley - though not as fast as the US, which takes 47 per cent of sales.
We could see why when we approached the gleaming line-up. There's an almost palpable aura of money, and then you open the door. Forests of wood, herds of cows, and great gleaming stockpiles of metal were mined to craft these interiors.
And we do mean craft. There's not just wood here, you can get it inlaid, patterned with marquetry or slashed with alloy seams. It takes 13 days to create a single wood set for this, the "baby" Bentley. And let's not get started on the leather ...
Snuggle down, fire her up and there's not initially much to tell you there's a six-litre W12 under that patrician bonnet. Already impressively quiet, cabin noise is further reduced. Finger the triple-thickness sound-proofing material that slathers the wheel arches, peer through the five-layer glass; yes, these guys are anal.
But they haven't entirely emasculated that mighty engine. Though the standard car gets the same 412kW and 650Nm as before, a host of minor changes boost power to 449kW for the Speed. Better yet, much of its 750Nm torque figure is permanently on tap: the torque "curve" flat-lines impressively. Zero to 100km/h is reached in just 4.8 seconds, half a second quicker than the standard car. Not surprisingly it's thirsty - the claimed figure's improved, but it's hardly frugal at 16.6 litres/100km. Still, spend this much on a car and you can probably afford to run it.
What else? Revised suspension bushes, spring and damper rates and anti-roll bars plus a steering rack rigidly mounted for more accurate steering have refined this car's response. An already smooth performer just got smoother; the standard car's softer subframe bushings imparting more compliance, while the Speed - with its lower ride height - is a smidge sportier in its response.
Not that it's easy to spot the difference on real roads. Wafting around Massachusetts didn't allow much hoonery - there's apparently a traffic cop every 50m, a rigidly enforced limit for anything resembling a bend.
But after 250km I preferred the Speed. Not for the slightly more precise handling or even the extra urge, but for its soundtrack, with that loin-melting wuffle as you lift off.
There's plenty to entertain you if wuffles aren't your thing. Cruising along while your buttocks are massaged has its moments. Yes, as well as plentiful adjustment, heating, cooling and massage functions are available, as are fold-out tables with lights and make-up mirrors - those option boxes aren't good for your bank account.
Especially the most compelling - the Naim audio. The Naim for Bentley partnership is the first foray into car audio for the top-end hi-fi brand. This isn't a new concept to rare-air cars but it is for Naim, which sells sound systems that top out above US$250,000 ($335,000).
This is all about excess, and Naim can afford to be obsessive about the quality of its systems, says export sales manager Richard Dane. The suave Pom loses his British frost over this. "We're all passionate about music - we're all frustrated musicians. We're people who weren't going anywhere with music so we do the next best thing - sound reproduction."
He promises to raise the hair on our necks with his sample system, and he does. Close your eyes to be dropped into a boys' choir, or beamed to some smoky jazz club. Open; jet-lagged motor noters clutching drinks. Close; Patricia Barber leans on your chair.
Naim has a right to be proud of this stuff - but it's not so far up its own fundament it can't deal with digital, and the cars, too, are set up for MP3s.
But what owners will most like is the fact they can boast the car world's most powerful production amp - an 1100-watt, 15-channel item that will change its response as speed alters, or the sunroof opens. Dane says that Naim identified the precise acoustics for each car and that its engineers pulsed pure sounds to see how the bodies resonated.
The result is changes that benefit owners who stick with the standard system - though Naim's anoraks didn't have it all their own way. "The speaker cable was the thickness of my thumb," Dane says, "and they said no, we want the door to open, so we had to change it."
What price almost-perfection? The Naim option's around 8000, so $16,000 of our dollars. In total, expect around $400,000 when it arrives in February 2009.
