30 Aug 06
It's raining, sporadically. The wipers are juddering, there's no flick-wipe and I'm wondering how it is that a £175,000 car can get wrong something so simple. But that's part of Arnageworld, an illogical and perception-bending place where lesser cars scuttle for cover as the monster approaches, where road bumps are steamrollered flat, where irresistible forces win over vast masses to make the object not just movable but unfeasibly full of velocity.
Through the murk of North Welsh mountains bombasts the black Bentley, 1000Nm of torque - it sounds sexier than 738 lb ft - tearing at the tarmacadam. That's enough alliteration for the moment; now let's switch off the ESP and apply a slug of that torque to this roundabout.
Holy smoke! Yes, there's plenty of that. Round comes the tail and Battleship Galactica powerslides through as innocent bystanders cover their eyes. It's hilarious, just as turbocharged old-school Bentleys have always been. But there are vital differences between this latest Arnage T's amusement portfolio and that of previous incarnations. You can have a well-managed taste of the tail's antics even with the ESP switched on, because it's a new system in the modern, subtle idiom able to control torque very accurately. Previously, ESP intervention meant a total dumping of boost, followed by response lag as it built up again. Fluidity wasn't the word.
