Don't Stop Me Now by Jeremy Clarkson Page A

really fast car without realising just how fast they were going are either lying or stone deaf. Or they were in a Bentley Continental GT.
    It’s uncanny. You put your foot down, wait the tiniest of moments while the turbos gird their loins, and thenthe view goes all wobbly. There’s no increase in noise, no increase in drama. You just have time to register the speedo needle climbing at what looks like a suicidal rate and then, with barely a whisper, you arrive at wherever it is you’re going.
    The secret to all this oomph is a 6-litre W12 engine which, for that little extra something, has been garnished with two turbochargers. The result is a set of figures that looks more like Swiss bank account numbers. And the result of that is a top speed of 198 mph. This is a very, very, very fast car.
    It is also very, very heavy. In fact, it weighs very nearly the same as a Range Rover. So if your right foot fancies a workout, you’d better stand by for a wallet-shrivelling experience at the pumps. How does 10 mpg sound? Well, forget it. You’ll only get that if you hop out and push.
    The reasons it’s so heavy are twofold. First of all, it is immensely well engineered. Shutting the door requires teamwork, and it comes with the biggest brakes ever fitted to a road car. And secondly, it has what appears to be a couple of oak chests and 16 dead cows lining the interior. It looks like Lord Kitchener’s library in there.
    Sort of. Instead of making its own dials out of ivory and fitting a nice Alan Turing-style computer with valves and ticker tape, Bentley has simply raided Volkswagen’s parts bin. There’s barely a knob or a read-out in there that hasn’t been lifted straight from the Phaeton.
    And there’s more VW stuff behind the skin, too. The engine, for instance, and most of the floor and, worst of all, the layout.
    As is the way with Volkswagens and Audis, the engine is mounted as far forward as possible without bits of it actually sticking out through the radiator grille, and the power is fed to all four wheels. It sounds like a recipe for terminal and dreary understeer.
    But no. You arrive at the corner in complete silence, doing about 5,000 mph, dab the brakes, but not too hard because they’re powerful enough to pull your head off, and then turn in. Every fibre of your body expects the nose to run wide and the peace to be shattered by the sound of a road-going Second World War bomber hitting a tree, but it just grips and grips.
    If you go really fast – and I’m talking now about ‘tired of living’ fast – the back loses traction and you are presented with an easy-to-control power slide. How they have achieved this when the layout is so obviously wrong I simply do not understand.
    But there’s no doubt about it. This is not just a luxury barge, designed to whisk you and your third wife off to St Tropez for a weekend’s bloating. It is a truly wonderful, jaw-slackeningly awesome driver’s car. You could take it to a track day and spend the whole time punting Ferraris and 911s into the Armco. For a laugh.
    Now shall we get to the bits that aren’t so good. For something that’s about the size of a football pitch, it is cramped in the front to the point of claustrophobia. And if the salesman tells you there’s space in the back for any human life form, laugh openly in his face.
    Also, I must say that while it has presence, it’s not handsome or pretty or attractive. From the front it lookslike a Rover 75, and from the back it looks like a car. But then it was designed by a Belgian.
    Then there’s the rear spoiler, which pops up at 70 mph – that should make the job of the traffic cops a little easier – and the satellite navigation, which, I think, was on a work-to-rule. It was still working out a route to Budleigh Salterton when it was already there and going no further.
    In addition, the glovebox lid didn’t shut properly, the armrests squeaked and the endless succession of warning bongs and beeps