Ettore Bugatti was not being entirely kind when he described a Bentley racing car as “le camion plus vite du monde” – the world’s fastest truck – but as pithy, grudging compliments go, it has stuck.
And although it’s sometimes tempting to wonder what a car maker’s long-departed founder would make of their company’s latest car (clue: if it makes money, they’d probably have liked it), here it’s worth considering instead whether Bugatti would have allowed himself a wry smile.
About nine decades after he said it, here’s a 2.4-tonne, four-wheel-drive Bentley SUV that’ll do 187mph.
The Bentayga is a car Bentley had been thinking about making for years.
But even though it knows all about luxury car owners better than most companies, it had a couple of lingering doubts. One: whether an SUV really could strut around the place asking people to pay nearly £200,000 for it.
And two: whether it could do the job justice. Making a luxury saloon that can do more than 180mph is difficult enough.
