21 Jun 06
Annoyingly, as I was forced to concede, he had a point. This may not have been my particular automotive paradise - which would require a Porsche 917 and a race track just for starters - but that was hardly the fault of the St Moritz, Lake Como or the Bentley Azure. So I sat back, chilled out and counted my blessings.
Then I started to see things as they really are. Which, in the Bentley's case, is a surprisingly fine automobile. I didn't expect it partly because the old Azure that had been in production during 1995-2002 was one of my least favourite Bentleys of the modern era. It lacked structural rigidity, which made it feel flabby to drive and gave it pretty poor ride quality. If ever a car had been built for people with more money than sense, then the old Azure was it. And given the limited numbers any car costing this much will sell in, I sort of expected a slightly more up-to-date version of the same car, with the same sloppy standards.
Not so. There are two reasons why this Azure deserves never to be thought of in the same breath as the old one: first it's based on the Arnage, which means its fundamental design dates back only to 1999 - the old Azure could trace its heritage straight back to 1980. Secondly and unlike the old Azure, Volkswagen wrote the cheque for this one.
