Bentley Flying Spur review

It's barely worth quoting list prices because they're never sold in standard spec. But FWIW the alternative trims, Speed and Mulliner, share the same mechanical spec and similar pricing but different visual selections. Mulliner is £244,100. Bentley has yet to confirm prices for the ‘entry-level’ car, which is available in Core or Azure versions. The latter returns Bentley to the neo-classical feel of older models, and denies it the ‘murdered-out’ look that’s become more of a trademark in recent times.

The two-tone example in these photos has £36k on top, made up of personalisation and options, including £7,210 for the Naim hi-fi upgrade.

Now, the hybrid consumption. Official figure is 202mpg for 33g/km. Ha! As with any PHEV, that's the fuel consumption and emission in a very defined test starting with the battery charged. And it's the fuel consumption not the energy consumption, because the drive cycle uses electricity as well as petrol.

If you don't plug in the Spur and just use it as a normal hybrid, you're looking at 20mpg. Charge up and you might get 40-50mpg on a 60-mile round trip. So if that happens to be your commute and you plug in at home, you'll be going to the petrol station half as often. Not just a matter of money then, but convenience and time.

The merely High Performance Hybrid is marginally more efficient, and should do close to 500 miles on one tank of fuel and fully charged. That’s a suitably luxurious amount of range.

That said, there are of course spectacular BIK savings if a company director has it as a company car. But that's changing soon.

Needless to say maintenance is a socking great bill, but at least there's a three-year unlimited-mileage warranty. Most Bentley owners do few miles in each of their many cars, mind. And depreciation isn't too grim. At least when expressed as a percentage. In absolute terms, it's dropping about £100 a day over a three-year ownership.