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Agreed.
Oh, and considerate slow motions that compliments the scene, too. :D
Not you, D.A.D.! Sit down!
It's pretty good timing with Bond 25 coming soon. Do you think he will drive this or a model that is still under wraps?
Here another new Bentley model. It should be very interesting. I hope it will appear in movie one day.
NOW WE'RE TALKIN'! Bentley has just never really done it for me. I've driven a ton of them and I guess they just don't have a 'sexyness' to them like Aston's do. I went to the dealership this weekend and they were just 'eh' IMHO. I really liked the Aston's and new Jags better (and they had a DB11!!!)
That being said this Bentley is the first one that has every really caught my eye. I love Bond driving Aston's but that is pretty awesome. It seems to be very similar to the GTR.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/new-bentley-flying-spur-207mph-luxury-sports-saloon-revealed
So what do you of it. It look great to me & if you think Should the next James Bond that up to you
Hush, I won't hear a word against it: The Bentley Continental GT convertible
(Sunday Times, June 16)
By Jeremy Clarkson
I'm now deaf. The doctor says the hearing loss in my right ear is "profound", which means I must now watch television with the subtitles turned on. It also means that when contestants mumble on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I have to simply guess what they've said. One of these days, someone's going to get the top prize by not being intelligible.
People are very angered by deafness. If someone has no legs, or gaping holes where their eyes should be, they get a lot of tea and sympathy. But when you are hard of hearing and you ask someone to speak up, they go into full sarcasm mode and over-enunciate, as if they're addressing some early days voice-activation software. Or they get angry. Last month, while we were watching 10cc at the Royal Albert Hall — they were so quiet, I couldn't actually hear them — a friend hit me for not being able to understand what she was saying. And then, when she did speak up, the people in the next box told us to shush.
I'm so deaf that last weekend, while a bit over-refreshed at a 50th birthday party, I took to the dancefloor and, with my head basically inside one of the speaker stacks, spent a happy hour throwing dad shapes to tunes from my youth.
This was a mistake, because for the rest of the weekend, noise and speech were no longer an underwater fog of bass — there was a whole new descant of what sounded like a dentist's drill being used to shut down an old fashioned alarm clock. Or maybe an adolescent bee having its little testicles pulled into place.
But, whatever: as I was driving the new Bentley Continental GT convertible to London recently, there was an issue. Obviously, the 5950cc engine was so quiet it could have been 10cc. Each of the 12 pistons, arranged in Bentley's peculiar W-shaped formation, went about its business like a mouse in a minefield. And there wasn't much wind noise either. A little ruffle above the roof, perhaps, but that was about it.
The tyres were a different story.
Almost all the noise made by modern cars comes from the air being squeezed in the tread of the rubber, and the Bentley was no different. However, the sound seemed to be echoing around inside the wheel arches. And it was producing a pitch I found intolerable. This was the sort of white noise the CIA uses to make people talk — I had to put tissues in my ears to make it go away.
At first I thought it was a Bentley design fault and I was going to write a finger-wagging review saying that this sort of thing should have been noticed and addressed by the noise, vibration and harshness department long before the car went on sale. But over the following days I noticed the exact same thing happened in my Range Rover and in a BMW i8 and in an Audi TT. And then I realised my night on the dancefloor, with my head in a 4,000-watt speaker, meant that, for the time being, I can't drive a car on the motorway without reaching for the Kleenex.
So let's move on, shall we, to an actual problem with the Bentley. At low speed — around town, for instance — the gearbox made an almighty fuss about changing from first to second. This was clearly a fault of some kind. And it would be unfair to judge the whole car on one glitch. That would be like damning a hotel because a breakfast waitress dropped a coffee cup. And, anyway, the rest of the car is perfect.
To the casual observer, it appears to be little changed from the previous model, but it is. The front axle has been shifted forwards, which means there's less of a front overhang and the engine can be mounted lower down. That, and a more steeply raked windscreen, means when you stare at it, as you would a Leonardo in the Hermitage, you begin to realise that this is a seriously good-looking car.
It's also extremely good value for money. I'm not being obtuse when I say that. Naturally, if you go crazy with the options list, things can go a bit Thomas Cook, but the base price of this car is only £176,000. And that puts it in the same league as an Aston Martin DB11 and Ferrari Portofino, and not far above the equivalent Mercedes.
None of these other cars feels quite so special. When you climb into the Continental GT, it's like climbing into Lewis Hamilton's head. There are miles of unnecessary stitching and everything glistens and glitters and shimmies. Yes, it's full-on bling, but come on, this is an BMF*, so what do you expect? In my ordinary life I like things plain and simple. Despite this, I absolutely loved being in this car. Bentley's rivals can give you a first-class experience, but the Continental GT is like being in a porn star's Gulfstream V. Who, secretly, doesn't want that in their life? And when the V8 arrives in the UK next year, you'll be able to get it for a whole lot less.
For now, then, it's the heavyweight W12 only, and you know what that means. Well, you're wrong. This car is stiffer than before, which means that even though it weighs more than most black holes, it is extremely agile. You can fling it about as if you're nine and it says Corgi on the back.
It even makes amusing noises. Apparently. Put it in Sport mode and when it changes up, there's a faraway boom. As though you've made a bittern angry somehow.
Since the world seems to be falling out of love with folding metal roofs, the Bentley comes with a canvas lid that can be folded away when you're driving. And when you do that, you can hear passers-by saying: "Wow. Look at that man in the Bentley putting his roof down as he goes along. I bet he is a nice chap and that he has a huge penis as well." Actually, I'm not sure they are saying that.
As a general rule, I don't like four-seat convertibles, because what's the point? The only person who ever looked good in the back of such a thing was, as I've said before, Hitler. But the Bentley gets round this by not really being a four-seater at all. Only a small child could fit in the back, and it's the same story in the boot. Once your kids are past, say, 14, you'd not get them in there either.
I was genuinely sad when the man from Bentley came to take this car away, because what it did was put me in mind of the hand-built Aston Martin Vantage Volante that used to thunder out of the old factory in Newport Pagnell. The one Timothy Dalton's Bond had in The Living Daylights.
They're both big Brit bruisers.
Except, of course, the Bentley is German. And that's a good thing too.
*BMFs are what Bentleys are known as north of 110th Street in New York. Think Samuel L. Jackson's blue language in Pulp Fiction and you're on the right track.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/bentley-exp-100-gt-revealed-spectacular-take-grand-tourer
I leave you to judge if suit James Bond
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/bentley/358638/new-bentley-mulliner-batur-british-brands-most-powerful-car-ever-over-730bhp
Bentley are making great interesting cars I leave it to you if suit the next James Bond in Bond 26
But with Astons going downhill (looking more like something Toyota would make) maybe Bentley will become the better choice.