04 Mar 05
The Continental Flying Spur saloon joined the existing Continental GT on the VW-owned, Crewe-based company's stand at Geneva, but did it look imposing enough? Up to the windscreen and dashboard the saloon is the same as the coupé, and maybe a little more differentiation - a bright metal line around the grille, perhaps - would have been good.
The Spur is certainly large, though, 500mm longer than the GT and 300mm bigger in the wheelbase. There's plenty of room in the back, and of course you're in the lap of luxury with leather, chrome, wood and barely a piece of unwelcome plastic in sight. The way you press the B in the Bentley badge to open the boot is very neat, and you release the bonnet's safety catch by pulling on the pop-up B at the other end.
Despite the extra size, the Flying Spur adds a modest 90kg to the GT's admittedly considerable weight. This is thanks to, for example, new aluminium subframes which will find their way into the GT in due course. Engineering chief Ulrich Eichhorn, the Anglophile German who in a past life helped make Ford's Ka, Puma and Focus such good fun to drive, says the Flying Spur has better steering than the GT, less harshness in the ride and better body control over undulating roads, thanks partly to its Skyhook-principle continuously-adaptive dampers. Only around 30 per cent of the Bentley's parts are shared with its VW Phaeton relative, by the way.
But there could shortly be a further Phaeton connection, because the Flying Spur might be built in Dresden. This makes excellent business sense, but is a little hard to accept given the history... Dresden... Rolls-Royce aero engines... Bentley's declared Britishness... etc. Anyway, the Bentley factory in Crewe is stretched to full capacity thanks to the GT's unexpected success, and there's a waiting list. The 'glass factory' in Dresden, a beautiful building in which fewer Phaetons are made than Volkswagen would like, could easily boost Bentley production as the two cars' underpinnings are quite similar. It would also boost jobs at Crewe, because it could make more sub-assemblies - engines, suspensions, interior components and the like - to supply to Dresden for final assembly into cars for the German and central European markets. Crewe's limiting factor is in the assembly line, but the other parts of its operation could grow. The bodies for the Continental family already come from Mosel in Eastern Germany, incidentally.
As for the long-running Bentley Arnage, it seems that it will run a while longer yet. At least five years, says Dr Eichhorn.
Full Preview: Bentley Continental Flying Spur
