Past and present

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Photo by Jorge Ferrari.

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Photo by Jorge Ferrari.

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NO CONTEST: The GT Speed really is frighteningly quick and extraordinarily refined. The Blower is uncomfortable and very hard to drive, but then it is over 75 years old. It wins on pedigree and style! (Photo by Jorge Ferrari)

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DAILY DRIVE: Built in 1930, GH 6951 served as a Bentley demonstrator before passing through nine owners and returning to Bentley ownership. Fully restored in 2000, it’s driven regularly and travels the world. (Photo by Jorge Ferrari)

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In the books James Bond drove a Bentley Blower, Shahzad Sheikh tests it against the car he would be driving today.

Most associate James Bond with Astons (sorry Lotus and BMW), but when author Ian Fleming introduced his famous superspy in Casino Royale the book, he was driving a 4½ litre Bentley. Built in 1930, Bond is related to have bought the car in 1933 and stored it during World War II.

A battleship grey convertible coupé, the Bentley had large French Marchal headlamps and an Amherst Villiers supercharger.

We were to meet another one of those rare supercharged ‘Bentley Blowers' which, having completed its earlier mission in Oman (mostly PR, with very little derring-do) was taking a breather in the Hatta Fort Hotel.

We had to rendezvous with it and get it back to Dubai for its new assignment (fun rides for VIPs and journos at an Autodrome-based Bentley driving day).

Obviously it would be inappropriate to go meet it in say, a Ford Mondeo (tell that to current celluloid Bond, Daniel Craig), so we opted for the car today's Bond should logically be peddling - instead of Craig's flipping DBS from Casino Royale the movie, and found ourselves pointing a tinted grille and jutting front spoiler south, and gingerly squeezing the load pedal of the fastest (0-100 in 4.5 sec and 326kph), most powerful Bentley ever.

Okay, maybe not the pouting torso that is Daniel Craig, but certainly either the burly, intimidating presence of Sean Connery, or the smooth charm and casual lethality of Roger Moore, would sit nicely in those beautifully bolstered and luxuriant front leather couches.

There's certainly a lot about the Continental GT Speed that says 007 better even than Aston's finest.

Suave, sophisticated, stylish; there are elements of wit and wisdom in the Speed's maturity, a restrained might in its stance, elegant effortlessness in its abilities and a brutal superiority and self-confidence evident despite the veneer of graciousness.

Like its British brethren from Gaydon, the GT Speed would be welcome at the Casino Royale, but unlike the Aston it can mix it up in a street brawl and emerge from a body count with little more than bowtie in need of straightening.

It's frighteningly easy to blast this Bentley down the road at phenomenal speeds. You become blasé about power and performance: ‘but of course it has over 600bhp dear boy.

It's only when you find yourself arriving too suddenly at a bend or corner that you ponder the physics-defying feat of curtailing the momentum of a mass tipping the scales at 2350kg.

Fortunately the awesome carbon ceramic brakes do their fade-free job very well indeed, and help to ensure no skid marks are left on the tarmac or the seats.

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