My review and experience of the 2005 Bentley Continental Flying Spur 

Why did I want to drive a Bentley?

I love Bentley. Ever since my passion for cars began during the first covid lockdown, Bentley was a brand that captures my eye. In fact, I made a list in November of 2020 with a list of my dream cars as I was first gaining an interest. The list included a BMW i8, BMW 8 series Convertible, a Rolls-Royce Ghost and finally, a Continental GT and Flying Spur.

The thing that captured my eye was the endless luxury, seconded only to Rolls-Royce. However, the thing that made me love Bentley more was the fact it had sportiness despite its ridiculous weight and as mentioned, endless luxury. 

I heard it described as the drivers Rolls-Royce and I always kind of understood it. A Rolls-Royce is for sitting in the back whilst you are chauffeured around whereas a Bentley is the ultimate grand tourers. I fully understood it a few days ago

Now, this article will be quite positive because I love the brand, the car and mostly because the car was truly brilliant in most aspects. I only had the car for half an hour so I didn’t get to test it’s technology or it’s reliability nor suffer the inevitable high cost of maintenance but I did get to experience the driving and truly enjoy it.

The car I drove was a 2005 Bentley Continental Flying Spur and although not my dream car (that goes to the 2005 or 2020 Continental GT) however it is said to be very similar to the continental GT of its day, if anything James May says the four door is better!

I got to drive it due to a company in England who offer driving lessons on private land for those under the legal driving age. They also offer a driving experience in as you guessed, a Bentley.

The Looks

I know a lot of people who don’t really like the look of this car, even on Top Gear they say that it looks too much like a normal car. This, however is why I love it. The styling is not in your face and blends in with traffic fairly well but it’s sheer size and overall Bentley design makes it stately.

The interior is full of leather, wood and not much else. Only good quality materials were present although i didn’t pay the biggest attention to smaller details due to limited time. I also didn’t get to use the plethora of settings to make the car perfect for you. One detail that you couldn’t miss was the steering column. I haven’t really found a way to describe it well but essentially, after the car is turned off, the steering column moves into the dashboard to give even more leg room to leave the vehicle. It doesn’t sound like all that but it was truly amazing in my eyes. Despite not trying all the technology , I’m sure it was very impressive. Overall the interior was quite dated but then again, the car is older than me by a year and technology has improved a lot.

It is still very luxurious in todays standards but would’ve been mind blowing at release. In regards to issues, I couldn’t really find many. If I nitpicked, the steering wheel itself didn’t feel that special (probably due to being from the Volkswagen Touareg) and the leather could be a bit slippery but other than that, it lived up to my expectations. Even the Volkswagen parts were covered in an array of high qualify leathers or chromes to make it a true, luxurious Bentley.

The specs

Before I talk about the driving feel and the viewpoint as a review and a dream experience, I would like to briefly mention the impressive specs and statistics.

This is a fast car by any standards, especially for a very large, heavy, luxurious car. It was in fact at release, the worlds fastest four door saloon with a top speed of 198mph. It still has one of the highest top speeds of any four door saloon with the fastest being the Aston Martin Rapide AMR with a top speed of 210mph. The 0-60 is also more than respectable with being about 4.9 seconds. How is all of this achieved? Simple, a 6.0 W12 petrol engine that produces 552bhp. All of these stats with a heavy and luxurious 2475 kilograms!

The driving

My amount of driving is quite low I’ll admit. I’ve done a few hours of lessons in a 2019 Vauxhall Corsa, this made me someone nervous driving the Bentley as I knew the immense stats. I worried that it would be hard to control due to weight and size. I also thought that due to the power, it would be hard to drive at low speeds and would want to speed off with a light press. All of these worries and not one came to fruition. 

The Bentley was not too dissimilar to a well trained butler. It was perfectly capable and also reserved at the right times. It was as if the car knew what you wanted to do. If I intended on going down and relaxed, the pedal would understand and cruise gently in splendour. When I wanted to drive it like the Bentley Boys of old who did races, then it would launch in comfort and exhilaration, the perfect combination. 

Even going in corners and fairly high speeds, control was maintained and didn’t feel heavy or cumbersome. Of course it didn’t follow the Lotus idea of simplify and add lightness but it did stay balanced and in control.

Summary

As a review, I can’t comment on the long term effects and I’m sure that it would have its fair share of problems and those problems would be as costly as the car at its original price. However, based on pure driving feel, luxury, fun, opulence and every other positive adjective you can think of in regards to Bentley, it exceeds in expectation. The one thing I can’t help but wonder is, if Bentley from 20 years ago is this amazing then how good are they today?

My next review/article

Due to a mix of reasons, my next article will be delayed however I will say that it’s about my recent trip to the British Motor Museum. I will admit it’s quite Jaguar heavy but I think you’ll enjoy reading about it. There were some amazing cars and it was just amazing to be in their presence!