As large and heavy as the Bentley Flying Spur may be, you are left in no doubt that it’s a driver’s car once you settle down into its multi-adjustable, double-fluted driver’s seat and have heard the soft-close door click home.
This is a low and enveloping cabin, making it unlike plenty of other super-luxury saloons. Although you’ve loads of shoulder room in either row, the roofline and windows sweep in close to your head. Visibility is somewhat limited. Wide pillars – particularly the B- and C-pillars – eat into your view of the world outside and the pillarbox-like rear screen seems a long way away in the rear-view mirror.
Just how much of that outside world you will feel inclined to see, once within this car’s wonderful bubble of lavishness, can be debated. The Spur’s interior is very similar to the Continental GT’s. It has a high transmission tunnel and beltline into both of which you feel thoroughly well sunken down. There’s the same cluster of switches and buttons around the gearlever and same 12.3in infotainment screen that the GT has.
This car’s point of difference comes in the design of the lower centre stack. Although Crewe’s trademark round aluminium air vents are retained on the outer extremes of the fascia, new rectangular ‘sculptural’ air vents feature in the middle. The space opened up below them, newly free for device storage, invites you to linger after you’ve stashed your phone thanks to the cool metallic feel of the adjacent vents’ brightwork.