Bentley Flying Spur review

Have you looked at the values of previous-gen Flying Spurs? You can’t buy a brand-new Toyota Aygo X for fifteen grand, but you can get a beautifully made, exhaustively developed, 200mph luxury saloon for such a sum. Wearing tens of thousands of miles and more than a decade on its V5, of course. And would you want one? They weren’t the most elegant machines around. And servicing is possibly a bit scary.

Will this generation stoop to city car prices? We reckon it’ll hold its head higher above the choppy waters of the used car seas. It’s better looking, better driving and way more desirable than the previous Flying Spur.

Still, it’s going to cost a lot to buy and run. Expect the circa £160,000 list price of the Hybrid and V8 to swell by at least £30,000 by the time you’ve attached all the features you want. This despite the fact it’s fitted with plenty of desirable stuff as standard.

Large internal combustion engines may become a hard sell in the new electric age, but an all-electric four-door Bentley is yet to arrive as we pen these words. So for now the Hybrid is the cleanest version, boasting around 85mpg on the somewhat unrealistic test cycle. The 22mpg of the V8 ought to be eminently achievable, on the other hand, while the W12 is ten per cent thirstier. And as Bentley’s big electric dawn nears, this mightiest of all the Spurs is resolutely among the last of the old guard. Perhaps we should embrace it while we can.