First Drive: 2021 Bentley Flying Spur V8 Review

The Flying Spur was once a bigger spinoff of the Continental GT, indeed it was called the Continental Flying Spur originally. But in reality it has never really been a Continental. It’s a four-door limo, that happens to share some styling with the big coupe. Now the Mulsanne has been consigned to the history books it is also the top car on the Bentley lux-limo list. But the W12 that the Flying Spur was kitted out with at launch is heavy and expensive, and with the Mulsanne went Bentley’s famous 6.75-litre V8 engine, so what would Bentley do next? Well, they took the V8 normally found in the Bentayga (and a bunch of other VAG products), and crowbarred it into the Flying Spur. To be honest, there’s no need to crowbar, the V8 fits nicely into the gaping bonnet left by the W12, but the effect is a more entry level (if there is such a thing from Bentley), lighter and more agile (if there is such a thing etc. etc.) Flying Spur.

The current Flying Spur is either understated or imposing, depending on the mood you are in when you look at it. On the face of it it’s 5.3m long and 2.2m wide, has a long bonnet and a big boot and a flying B poking from the front. If that’s not imposing, then what is. But when you stare for a little bit longer you’ll see that it’s not quite as frightening as it first looked. Whereas a Rolls-Royce demands you move with its big bluff brows, the big Bentley is more respectful, befitting the company that makes cars for the Queen. The nose has a big upright grille, as any big British limo really should, but the rest of the front is more rounded off, arching into that super-long body. The front focuses more on sporting intent, with a big lower grille and a carbon-fibre chin. The carbon-fibre continues around the side, flanking the sills, and then over the boot, with a rather lovely tiny spoiler providing what we assume is a tenth of a point of downforce at the back. The rear is as simply enjoyable as the front, with a pair of big B-lettered lights flanking a plain boot, the letters BENTLEY are picked out in simple letters. It all comes together rather nicely I think.

Using the word agile when describing a limo feels like a stretch of the definition, like putting the unsuspecting word into chains and forcing it into some really heavy lifting. But actually, the Flying Spur V8, kitted out here with Bentley’s Drive Dynamics Control and rear-wheel-steer, it is at least  more agile than you expect. The V8, a 4.0-litre twin-turbo unit, is 100kg lighter than the W12, the equivalent of removing all the crown jewels and Prince William, allowing for a much better weight distribution than its heavy-nosed sister. While that doesn’t mean a sprightly super sporting drive, it is nonetheless very rapid when it needs to be.

The sprint to 62mph is dismissed in 4.1 seconds, 100mph in 8.9 and the Flying Spur V8 will hit 198mph where you can. That’s despite it weighing in at 2,330kg, but that’s what 770Nm (558lb ft) of torque will do for you. That torque is available at 2,000rpm, although half of that is there from basically idle. The eight-speed ZF dual-clutch ‘box then distributes that around to all four wheels, and what is most impressive about sticking your foot to the floor in the Flying Spur is just how unfussed it is about the process. There’s barely a whiff of heave as the eight cylinders fire into action, all down to that aluminium suspension and air springs. It feels less like a punch in the back and more like when a big jet passenger plane hits the straps, a reassuring push to the back to let you know something is happening. Power, and it feels slightly gauche to talk of power here, is all concentrated at the top, 6,000rpm to be precise, but it really doesn’t matter as the torque curve is perfectly flat from 2,000-4,500 rpm, getting you up to speed before the engine’s power takes over.

Cornering is flat, as you would expect from a Bentley. Really, really flat, in a way that means the wheel barely weights up, but that’s not scary; it takes a couple of corners to get used to it, but in reality it’s more incredible than off-putting. Corner after corner and bump after bump is dismissed as if not there, massive potholes become mere humps as you glide along completely unperturbed by what’s going on around you. Of course it is entirely impossible to hide the Bentley’s size when it really comes down to it, but to be able to sprint along this fast in something this gargantuan is very impressive. Almost as impressive as the fact that, with the rear-wheel-steer, the turning circle is just 11.4m.

There’s nothing new about the V8’s interior over the standard car, but it’s just a reminder that the new direction of interior design (or rather the new re-evaluation of the old direction) is one of the best things the company has done for many a year. The Flying Spur’s interior feels a properly luxurious place to be, it’s festooned with buttons and led by a giant, 12.3-inch touchscreen display. But that display can be rolled away at the touch of a button (that’s an option extra by the way) for a more back-to-refinement way of driving. The quality and style of this new interior makes you wonder if Rolls-Royce’s Ghost has actually gone the wrong way in dispensing of so many things to put everything into the touchscreen. Driving along with the screen away and no distracting bright lights from amid the dash feels refreshing in 2020.

It’s a little hard to look beyond that rotating central touchscreen, but I will. It’s brilliant fun, and a genuinely nice thing to have, but the rest of the Flying Spur is just as impressive. That big screen, when not hidden, contains sat-nav, Bluetooth, WiFi controls, digital radio, Apple CarPlay (no Android Auto) a satellite radio in case you’re into that, 4G mobile tech and there’s even a CD/DVD slot, for those who still use discs.

Heated seats were massage equipped on our car, and a bewildering array of options are available for the ambient lighting. But my favourite feature still goes to something found only in the back. No, it’s not the champagne fridge (it holds two bottles and does genuinely cool a bottle down in about an hour, we tested it), it’s the removable touchscreen that controls everything you could wish for. Sure you have to lean forward to get it, but you can take it out and monitor progress. It’s very impressive how well such a touchscreen works here, given some companies can’t make ones that work well up front.

The Flying Spur might be the most impressive luxury car on sale today. Sure the Phantom sits astride basically everything, but that’ll set you back £350,000... at least. The Flying Spur’s mix of old fashioned refinement and modern tech sets it nicely apart from the Germans, festooned with their touchscreens and extras. The V8 sounds good, as much as I do wish you could hear it more that might go against the point of the Flying Spur, and pulls incredibly well. It makes you wonder what the W12 actually provides other than a lot of extra weight – it’s certainly not a massive amount of stuff you need. The thing that stands out for me is that there is still a place for old fashioned simple refinement in motoring in a world obsessed with technology. The fact that you spend time being annoyed by the tiniest little thing (plastic gear paddles, very plastic exterior details) shows how good the rest of the car is.