We drove Bentley’s prototype Bentayga, and made it more drifty

As first drives go, this one comes laced with added pressure.

Not only am I driving Bentley’s development Bentayga – a mule of the new 600bhp, £160,000 SUV that has successfully negotiated thousands of miles in testing, and is in the final stage of development before sign-off – but my co-pilot is Bentley CEO, Wolfgang Durheimer.

Photos: Jamie Lipman

The first sensation as you climb aboard the Bentayga? Familiarity. The interior, driving position and major touchpoints and are all unmistakably Bentley. 

Swathed in the skin of no fewer than 15 cows and built with millimetric hand-crafted accuracy, the Bentayga’s interior exudes the Crewe quality to which we’ve become accustomed in recent years. The elevated driving position places your eyeline above that of mere mortals, something Durheimer says harks back to the DNA of the Blower Bentley.

“We treated the interior in a way that has never before been delivered in an SUV,” Durheimer explains. “This interior is a coming home for the Mulsanne customer.”

We set out from Bentley HQ. Aside from the raised driving position, the Bentayga feels and handles pretty much like a Mulsanne.

A huge amount of effort has gone into minimising the body roll, and although the active roll control software is yet to be signed off, it’s already a impressive technical achievement, allowing the Bentayga to lean by up five per cent before holding it there.

“You will notice there’s still a little work to do on the anti-roll bar, but other than that I’m very happy with it,” Durheimer admits.

Half an hour on the road demonstrates that the Bentayga’s ability to tackle corners – combined with 600bhp of shove from a heavily revised version of Bentley’s 6.0-litre W12 engine, and that opulent interior – already puts this development car high on the list of ultimate cross-continental missiles. So far, so Bentley.  

Then we turn off the tarmac and onto the dirt – a surface well out of Bentley’s traditional comfort zone. Until now.

We pile across a deeply rutted farm track and up a steep incline, the W12’s monster 663lb ft of torque dragging the Bentayga’s 2.5-tonne mass with ease. You can select from no fewer than eight driving programmes, but we leave it in ‘Bentley’ mode, described is the ‘optimum’ by Durheimer.

The Bentayga remains unfazed as we head onto a large open field of wild grassland, a surface described by seasoned off-roady types as ‘green ice’.

The Bentayga will traverse a 35-degree slope without rolling, and as we blast round the field there something mildly perverse about driving something so palatial off-road. And the more extreme the off road challenge, the more bizarre that contrast becomes.

We head into the woods through a narrow track (the Bentayga proving surprisingly easy to place despite its size) and the worlds first uber-luxury SUV continues to remain unruffled.

As we fire out of the forest, Durheimer politely enquires if I’d like to try drifting the Bentayga on grass. All in the name of science, you understand. Initial aggressive stabs at it from yours truly don’t deliver the results the boss wants, the traction control cutting in to spoil the fun.

Diplomatically, I let Durheimer take over. Despite the boss’s best high-speed Scandi-flicks, the electronic nannies continue to get in the way. I suggest the Bentayga requires a real ‘everything off’ button. Durheimer agrees.

So when you’re drifting your new Bentayga across a field, or imperiously hanging the tail out on a (very large) wet roundabout, just remember TopGear helped make it possible.