First Drive: Bentley’s Flying Spur Speed Is a Muscular Heavyweight That Sets a New Benchmark
“Remember, it’s 25 years in jail for damaging a cactus,” warns Wayne Bruce, communications czar for Bentley Motors Limited, as he tosses us the keys to the marque’s newest and most powerful four-door ever, the fourth-generation Bentley Flying Spur Speed. Sufficiently admonished, we’re set loose from the veranda of the Four Seasons Scottsdale and into the foothills of the Sonoran Desert. We have no plans to damage local flora, but beneath the sophisticated lines and refined amenities of the vehicle lurks a beast begging to be unleashed on this cacti-flanked thoroughfare.
Bentley’s Beyond100+ strategy, geared toward greater sustainability, has a number of components underway as incoming CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser takes the helm. Primary among these is the brand’s first all-electric model, due in 2026. The Flying Spur Speed—a Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde of a car—is a bridge between the old Bentley and the new, a model variant that must compensate for the loss of its W12 engine.
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The new all-wheel-drive Flying Spur Speed comes equipped with a plug-in-hybrid power train comprising a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 and an electric motor. The pairing delivers a total of 771 hp, an acceleration time of zero to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds, a top speed of 177 mph, and 47 miles of electric range. It’s also the first Flying Spur to get four-wheel steering.
My driving companion, Kristin, and I depart the hotel in Bentley mode, the automaker’s eponymous default setting, and—first things first—begin scrolling through the manifold touch screen controls to customize the individual climate and postural settings for our quilted, hand-stitched leather seats.
The car purports to “measure and maintain the perfect body temperature via zoned heating and ventilation.” It shouldn’t take long for the Flying Spur to learn about us. I tend toward freezing, whereas Kristin veers the other way, mentioning, “I’m a 53-year-old woman. I’m always hot.”
At least the functionality should eliminate any fighting over climate control. But we are equally intrigued by Bentley’s twist on seating comfort: a postural adjustment feature that the automaker claims “soothingly and seamlessly varies the pressure on the occupants’ muscles throughout their journey” to minimize fatigue. This sounds promising. As our route to Sedona and back is a circuitous mix of surface streets, highways, and twisty canyon roads, the prospect of traveling the 300 miles without a nap seems unlikely.
“Sitting consistently the whole time—that’s what gives you a numb bum,” says Bentley spokesman Mike Sayer, explaining more about the seating system. “It’s about blood flow. If that seat is very slowly changing shape underneath you, that [numbing] never happens.”
Leaving Scottsdale, Kristin and I get to work, so consumed with jabbing at the car’s cumbersome, 12.3-inch touchscreen that we hardly notice the car seems to be doing the driving for us. “Cruise control isn’t engaged?” I asked. “No,” Kristin replies. “I’m not even touching the pedals.” Yet there are no preternatural powers at play here, as this particular street features a long, imperceptible descent that requires no throttle input, a fact we learn only later.
That, though, is the point of the Flying Spur Speed. Like its two-door Bentley Continental GT Speed sibling, it benefits from the automaker’s most advanced chassis ever. On exhibition is Bentley’s suite of performance enhancements that includes the aforementioned four-wheel steering as well as active all-wheel drive, torque vectoring, an electronic limited-slip differential, and twin-chamber air springs.
“Then we have our little secret weapon,” says Bruce: a twin-valve damper sitting within the air springs. The independent control over compression and rebound damping means that Bentley can improve the Flying Spur’s Comfort mode without sacrificing performance.
As we near Sedona, we toggle between chassis settings, observing for differences in ride quality. We alternate between Comfort, which loosens the dampers to absorb bumps on the road, and Sport, which stiffens the suspension and uses active all-wheel drive to send more power to the rear axle. We also drop it into EV mode, which activates at speeds up to 87 mph. And best yet, plugging in is optional. The new Flying Spur comes with a charge mode that allows the engine to fully replenish the battery even while driving.
This new dual-character Bentley leaves us with no reason to bemoan the loss of its gas-guzzling W12 engine. True, the hybrid version is heavier, but it delivers a surprisingly nimble yet planted ride, and requires less time spent topping off the tank.
Kristin and I had no qualms about the performance—even though I did find the postural adjustment at times abrupt and bordering upon naughty—but considered the car’s main kink to be the infotainment system, which shut off the navigation just before important turns, obfuscated the menus we wanted, and continually stopped its job to nose its way into our private conversations. Didn’t we almost have it all?
Click here for more photos of Bentley’s Hybrid Flying Spur Speed.
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