Test Drive: The Bentley Continental GT Speed Le Mans Edition Was Made For Luxurious Cruising

Taking a one week vacation in California is always a good thing, as is making the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, which is easily one of the best road trips in North America. A great thing is doing all of that from the quilted red leather throne of a Bentley Continental GT Speed Le Mans Edition Woolf Barnato. And yes, we do know that the name is huge. It's so huge, in fact, that we couldn't fit all of it in the title of this article.

When going from L.A. to Petaluma, and eventually as far north as Sea Ranch, we experienced just about everything an owner would, so we're going to tell you what it's like to live with a Bentley as a daily driver.

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When the Bentley and I first met, I was struck by how understated it all is on the outside. When you move beyond sports car or luxury car and into the realm of exotic, even if you know better, you expect it to look larger than life in person. The GT Speed certainly does look like a very, very impressive vehicle, but it doesn't have the flash of most cars in this price range ($253,095). In my opinion, this is a very good thing, as this is the sort of car that is meant to be driven every day.

This is not to say that it's inconspicuous by any stretch of the imagination. In a week we saw countles gawkers, a kid in a Hyundai who chased us and waved frantically, two people taking pictures with the car when it was parked, and one gold digger in a Mini Cooper who really wanted to get in my pants wallet.

The inside is a very different story, however. Every possible surface of the Le Mans edition is covered in beautiful quilted leather which was, in my case, red. Normally red leather interiors appeal to me but don't look right in person, but the tone of this particular red was perfect, and the double-stiched quilting just added to the appeal. My mother might have started calling the car "the bordello," but she also once said that she likes her cars "to look like bars of soap."

Day to day life in the Bentley is really quite easy. It's not so large as to be cumbersome and was fairly easy to navigate the choked and horrifying mess that is LA traffic in. Parking was even made idiot-proof by the proximity sensors and back up camera (part of the $4,220 Convenience Specification). There's plenty of room for luggage in the trunk, and there's enough room for a person or two in the back. Three people is easy, and four is possible with a short-legged driver (not me) or a driver who is willing to drive in a slightly awkward position (me).

While everybody was comfortable the front seat, passengers are in the lap of luxury itself. Hell, we even had the $840 seat ventilation and massage function. Having a cool ass and a rubbed back on long drives is wonderful.

After the brief stint in LA it came time to get on the legendary Pacific Coast Highway and commence what could very well be the perfect road trip. My wife and I said our goodbyes to the brother-in-law and hopped in the car. Twenty minutes later we stopped trying to figure out how to select an alternative route on the navigation system, went back inside, and wrote down some directions. My wife, being one of the few people who can equal me in sarcasm, slapped that post-it right over the nav screen.

Only being able to select the most efficient, the fastest, or shortest routes (very German) wasn't this system's only flaw, however. Many of the directions given were just odd. For example, it would often instruct me to merge left or go left at a fork when what it really meant was that I was to stay on the highway. The map's zoom level would never stay where I put it for more than a second, either. When I was on small streets it was always zoomed out too far and when I was on a long stretch of highway it was oddly zoomed in. There may have been ways to fix these problems, but I didn't feel like going out late at night to spend an hour trying to learn to speak Bentley.

Once the old-school, hand-written directions to the PCH were in place and we had taken a quarter-million-dollar car to In-n-Out, we were off. L.A. traffic was, as expected, absolutely miserable and seemingly interminable, but it was made slightly more sufferable by the Adaptive Cruise Control (also part of the Convenience Specification). Being able to stretch both legs in the back and forth between slow and slower helped quite a bit.

Once I'd spent everal hours giving serious consideration to getting out of the car to say "Do you know who I am? Get out of the way!" and hoping the car would provide the necessary credibility, the traffic finally cleared and in a frenzy I kicked the throttle hard for the first time.

It was fast.

Well, I was in a high gear and in D rather than S, so it was nothing for a fleeting moment as the turbos spooled up, and then the 590 ft-lbs of torque hit. It was eerily similar to the feeling a surfer gets when he's getting hit by a wave he wasn't quite ready for.

Heading North on a beautiful highway full of sweeping corners, incredible views, and briny air made it clear that, as servicable as the Bentley was in L.A., this is what it was made for. It's made to ferry the 1 percent up and down the world's rivieras in the utmost style and comfort, all while tempting the driver into having more and more fun.

As we cruised lazily up the PCH, I was enjoying myself immensely, simply taking in the surroundings, the lovely company, and the good music coming from both the excellent speakers and the exhaust pipe, but there was something in the back of my mind the whole time; I knew we were getting closer and closer to Big Sur, where the highway changes abruptly from the sweeping curves we were experiencing to much tighter cliff-side turns. Up there it's like a race track where the run offs were all replaced with 100-foot drops onto jagged rocks and with traffic going in the other direction. I couldn't wait.

After fiddling with the touch screen which had, at some point, shed its paper-based replacement, I stiffened up the car's suspension and laid into the twisting road ahead of me just as the sun was going down. Because of the 5,115 lb kerb weight the big cruiser certainly can't be described as "spritely" or "lithe" but it certainly does grip the road. Enthusiasm is absolutely encouraged, but the GT Speed won't be winning any races, even if it is called "Le Mans."

At no point did I ever feel like I was in danger, though. There was never a point where I felt I was really fighting the weight; it was merely holding the overall handling back. This is an important distinction to make, since there are some GT cars like this one that feel quite planted but can suddenly snap into oversteer or surprise with large amounts of oversteer if over-driven even slightly. Luckily, the Bentley was always predictable and fast, even if it wasn't blazing fast around the bends.

Having enjoyed the ride through the twists and turns around Big Sur we eventually made our way up past Marin County to Petaluma, where we stayed the night. The next day we made our way up to Sea Ranch, a community of small cabins designed by architect Obie Bowman. There was more spirited driving on the way up, that was hampered once by a jealous BMW owner and once by an SUV hauling one of those RVs that compresses down and looks like an RV for hobbits who refused to use the turn-outs to let me by. Douche-waffles, both of them.

At Sea Ranch the GT Speed continued to demonstrate its amazing versatility by weaving in and out of tight and twisting roads in small towns, navigating large bumps and hills without scraping any expensive bodywork, thanks to the adjustible ride height, and being easy to drive slowly, as well as quickly.

And this is the essence of this car; it's the VW GTI of Dubai. It's fast, fun, and sporty without losing any practicality. GT Speed owners can bring friends along for the ride, stuff the trunk full of luggage or groceries, be utterly comfortable no matter how long the drive, and still feel the intoxicating rush that only a 4.0 second 0-60 mph dash provides.