From the moment a door glides open, it’s obvious where the money went. Out wafts the earthy scent of high-quality leather goods. To get this bouquet in the Cadillac, you’d have to leave 100 Coach wallets and 200 Gucci loafers inside. Nine entire bull hides are stretched and stitched together for the Flying Spur’s interior. It takes 75 hours to craft the cabin leather: Stitching together the steering wheel takes four hours, and the seats (ours wore a diamond pattern) require 30. Bentley employs 12 seamstresses in its leather shop. Even the massive headliner is leather.
Over in the wood shop, craftsmen carefully select 35 walnut panels that add up to nine square yards of surface area. Our car added veneered picnic tables for $2685. The Spur Speed’s grand total neared a quarter-million dollars—leather and wood shops don’t pay for themselves. Buy a Bentley, and you become a benevolent job creator. Indeed, everyone assumes you belong to the job-creating class when they gaze upon the flawless exterior—it takes 12 hours of sanding and polishing to achieve that deep finish. Our cigar-colored (Havana Metallic) Flying Spur had valets drooling, but they also expect you to tip generously. Don’t, and you’ll hear nasty words thrown in your wake. Pretenders like us can’t afford that kind of responsibility.
According to the EPA, the Flying Spur Speed will exact $4230 a year in gas alone. During our test, the colossus under the hood drank a gallon every 14 miles. Yes, the engine is essentially two Volkswagen VR-6s stuck together like Siamese twins, but that’s like saying the Bugatti Veyron’s mill is simply two Volkswagen W-8s. There’s some truthiness to this, but it’s not the whole story.
Nine hours are required to put together the Speed’s 600-hp twin-turbo W-12 (the Phaeton’s W-12 is rated at 450 horses). It generates more torque (355 pound-feet) at 1000 rpm than the Cadillac musters at its peak. Low-end power is strong, but then the boost tops out at about 4000 rpm and you’re pressed against the leather shop’s finest. This Flying Spur Speed proved slightly slower than the last one we tested [September 2010]. A few ponies may have fallen victim to California’s 91-octane gas (our previous test car quaffed magnums of 93 octane). Still, the Speed hit 60 mph in 4.7 seconds and conquered the quarter-mile in 13.2 seconds at 108 mph. Those are respectable numbers for a dedicated performance car.
Sports-car-like brakes stop the Bentley train from 70 mph in 161 feet, again and again. Handling is similarly astounding. Huge Pirelli P Zeros designed just for Bentley gripped the skidpad at a tenacious 0.88 g. The car’s balance is like that of a front-driver; it plows at the limit, but the all-wheel drive thrusts it smartly out of corners. Nothing really disturbs the ride or the structure. Contained within those 5482 pounds are both a limousine and a sports car.
Even though the Flying Spur Speed costs more than four times as much as the XTS, it’s still the winner. Its performance and finish are commensurate with its price and, to our point about humbler origins, banish all thoughts of the Phaeton within. Too often, the Cadillac exposes its family-sedan roots. For nearly $60K, we’d like to forget that family sedans exist. The XTS is a much better deal when it’s closer to its $44,995 base price, but then you’d miss the special gauges and the leather-trimmed interior. Yes, the Bentley costs an absurd amount of money. But it delivers an unparalleled luxury experience. Every drive in the Bentley is an escape from reality, an occasion. Consider this: If you tried to decorate a room in your house to the material and craftsmanship standards of the Flying Spur, it might cost more than the car. And no room in the universe hits 60 in 4.7 seconds.