Driven: Bentley's high-speed limousine

You demand the best. Everything you touch, eat and drink has to be the finest money can buy. Its the same with your limousine. You expect luxury, refinement, comfort, performance and style. Compromise doesnt get a look in. Enter the Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed the faster, sportier Flying Spur for those who like to split their time between driving and being chauffeured.

The keen driver in you will appreciate the Speeds retuned steering and lower, uprated suspension, all of which makes controlling this behemoth more rewarding. Power is up from a piffling 552bhp to a much more agreeable £600. Performance is suitably monstrous: its like driving a jet-propelled Chesterfield armchair.

Ride

It doesnt feel unwieldy, though. The controls are ideally weighted and car seems to shrink around you, so you wont feel daunted when the road turns interesting.

Once its time to relax, you can switch the adjustable suspension into the most comfortable of its four settings and cruise along serenely, untroubled by the outside world.

Or rather you can, so long as youre on a smooth surface. You see, the ride is generally sumptuous, but its slightly fidgety on patchy roads, while concrete surfaces kick up a most unbecoming din.

In the cabin

Still, youll be able to console yourself in the huge cabin, which is swathed in the finest wood and leather. Shame the effect is somewhat spoiled by the plasticky buttons on the centre console. The central screen looks old-fashioned, too.

Youll need an extra £15,800 for the Speed over the standard Flying Spur, but then that wont be a problem when youre spending over £100k. As for running costs, if you have to consider them, you cant afford them.

Bentley Continental Flying Spur SpeedPrice from £133,300
On sale Now
Youll like Speed; space; style
You wont Refinement on patchy roads