The Bentley Flying Spur, redesigned for the 2020 model year, is the British ultraluxury brand’s newest challenger to Maybach and AMG versions of the Mercedes-Benz S-class sedan. The 12-cylinder Bentley has a maximum output of 626 hp. It can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds and boasts a top speed of just more than 200 mph. Bentley claims it’s the world’s fastest sedan. Here’s a roundup of snippets of Flying Spur reviews from the automotive media.
“The Flying Spur is fairly large, at over 17 feet in length, but the rear-wheel steering — a first for Bentley and one feature that is unique to the Spur — helps out massively when negotiating the incredibly cramped and twisty roads of [a tiny European] principality. With the rear wheels countersteering at slow speed, the car actually feels no longer than the Continental GT, effectively hiding the bulk of the Flying Spur. Once out in the mountains, the rear-wheel steering makes hairpins a breeze. It seems ironic: The one thing that’s truly unique to the Flying Spur actually makes it feel more like a Continental.
“The engine’s ample torque can hurtle the Flying Spur off the line toward the horizon effortlessly, and the weight of the car is all but forgotten until it’s time to hit the brakes. There’s a reason this car comes with the largest steel brakes ever fitted to a production car: The Flying Spur uses every last bit of its stoppers to efficiently bring its bulk to a halt.”
— Drew Stearne, Roadshow by CNET
“Like its Continental GT coupe sibling, the Flying Spur is fitted with an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. If ever there was a car suited to a conventional automatic transmission, the Spur would be it. But the dual clutch does a surprisingly good job of playing the unobtrusive gear-swapper. Particularly impressive is its behavior pulling away from a stop. It is silky smooth and consistent, which isn’t always the case with dual-clutch units. This choice of transmission was an unnecessary challenge for the Bentley engineers — a ZF eight-speed auto would have been an easy, smart choice — but it’s a challenge they’ve accepted and surmounted. The transmission only stumbles during quick on/off throttle applications, such as during aggressive passing maneuvers. Otherwise, it’s a gem.”
— Daniel Pund, Car and Driver
“Tearing through the Alps on the Route Napoleon, the Flying Spur continued to disguise its corpulent mass. This is accomplished by the car’s improved front-rear balance compared to the outgoing model, as a result of moving the front axle forward 5.1 inches, shifting the weight rearward and reducing understeer.
Further, the old car’s front-drive-based all-wheel-drive system delivered a fixed 40 percent of engine torque to the front wheels, which also contributed to understeer. The new model is primarily rear-wheel drive, with an active system that can shift some power to the front as needed. With power going to the rear wheels under most circumstances, the Flying Spur benefits from the crisp steering response on initial turn-in to corners that isn’t blunted by the front tires struggling to provide grip for both turning and acceleration.”
— Dan Carney, Popular Science
“The Flying Spur may be a half-foot longer than a standard Escalade with a wheelbase that outstretches the Cadillac by nearly 10 inches, but thanks to an all-new four-wheel-steering system, premiered by Bentley on the Spur, and a variable front/rear torque split and torque-vectoring all-wheel-drive system borrowed from the Continental GT, this car can actually dance.
“This, I discovered, navigating the narrow sweepers and hairpins and squiggly bends that climb up to the corniches cresting the principality. I traversed similar terrain in a new Continental GT last year and found its ability to power in and out of corners to be quite robust, but that was a sports coupe weighing about 250 fewer pounds. The Spur operates in a slightly different way. You have to be a little more deliberate about where you point and plant it, so the rear end doesn’t end up rotating into the next time zone, and you have to get on the brakes a bit more heading in to ensure that the whole mass doesn’t steamroller into or off of a cliff. But the steering is remarkably secure, and, in Sport mode, you can rely quite a bit on the all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering to just, kind of, sort it out.”
— Brett Berk, Autoblog
“The Flying Spur shoulders into corners like a grizzled fullback, but with all of the grace of a princess and all the right looks. Thanks to rear-wheel steering that dials in just 1 degree of relief for overburdened front tires in a similar direction, the Flying Spur’s 125.8-inch wheelbase gets cut down to less than three yards — instead of the mile-and-a-half wheelbase it feels like from the inside. (The rear wheels can countersteer to the fronts at up to 4.1 degrees at lower speeds, which is far more useful for parking.)
The W-12 sounds like it could use another day at finishing school when the accelerator is mashed, even though it’s kind and attentive. The same goes for the 8-speed, which clunks into an unrefined shift when the work of hauling so much mass from 35 mph to 80 mph is summoned, immediately. First of the first-world problems, really.”
— Aaron Cole, Motor Authority
“Our first opportunity to pitch the car into a corner comes along the curvaceous Moyenne Corniche highway in Nice, France. The Bentley exhibits steering feel that befits the car’s character: light at low speeds, well-weighted in the turns and just communicative enough to keep the driver informed. The aforementioned hardware, namely the rear-wheel steering and active anti-roll bars, work diligently to keep the sedan flat through the corners. Though, inevitably, the 209.2-inch-long Bentley feels its size as we work to keep the car centered in its lane through the twisty hill climb.
“At low speeds, the Flying Spur proves a wonderful dance partner. But carry enough W12-induced speed into a corner, and the car’s overall size and occasional propensity to understeer make it tough to keep things tidy through the bends. Still, a day of mountain carving in the Spur is enough to convince us that Bentley’s focus on the driving experience is not a wasted exercise.”