OUR CARS
FEATURED THIS WEEK
BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT HONDA CR-V KIA E-NIRO RANGE ROVER VELAR PEUGEOT 5 08
In the same way that the Bentley
Boys would doubtless be in awe at the
engineering feat that is a modern-
d ay B e nt le y, I w onde r w h at w ou ld
surprise them more: this car or a
tunnel under the sea to France?
Much concern was had overgetting into the overheight carriage
rather than a standard one, given
the width of the Continental and its
easily scuffed alloys. So I queued
defiantly for the ‘overheight’ carriage
despite not having booked such
a ticket (ignorance rather than
arrogance), and when every other
non-overheight car got shooed
towards the normal carriages, the
stern-faced woman pointed me the
right way and I let out a sigh of relief.
The first leg of our trip was the
final section (albeit in reverse) of the
route taken by Le Train Bleu. Today’s
train from Calais to Paris would take
a r ou nd h a l f t he t i me of ou r W1 2-powered route. But I’d confidently
say – despite the French rail
network’s superiority over ours – that
the Continental would be everyone’s
favourite, given the choice.
My partner and I mile-munched
our way along the motorway – not a
test of dynamism but certainly a test
of effortless grand touring. Not once
were we restless or uncomfortable.
T he mo s t e xc it i n g pa r t of t h at le g
came at a péage near Paris where
we were greeted by the mayhem
of the Gilets Jaunes. One common
thread in the Continental is feeling
conspicuous, and nowhere was this
mor e t r ue t h a n he r e. We sm i le d a sthe protesters swarmed the car, in
the hope that such a blatant display
of wealth wouldn’t aggrieve them.
All was fine, and then through
no fault of our own – an important
note for any Gendarmerie reading
this – one of the protesters blocked
us from paying for the toll, took our
ticket and we were away free, having
saved a good ¤20.
Our first hotel stop was in the
s t u n n i n g t ow n of Font a i ne ble au. A
requirement for every hotel I booked
T
BENTLEY
CONTINENTAL GT
Chateau (^) de Perreux,
Amboise: doughnuts
on (^) the lawn not (^) allowe
d
Continental GT couldn’t
be more in its element
o n a Fr e n ch r o a d t r i p
Can our luxurious grand tourer live up to
its name on a road trip around France?
TRAVEL REPORT MILEAGE 9863
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
To see if Bentley’s third-generation
Continental GT rules the roost as the
ultimate grand tourer
he continent in a
Continental. It had to
be done. The original
pl a n w a s t o r e - e n a c t t he
route of Le Train Bleu, a train which
ran between Calais and the French
Riviera and against which one of
the Bentley Boys, Woolf Barnato,
famously raced in the 1920s. Time
and funds did not quite permit such
a n e xc u r sion , how e v e r, s o i n s t e a d
I concocted my own road trip of
Bentley-based highlights.
It s t a r t e d , a s mo s t do, at t he
Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone.
66 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 14 AUGUST 2019
BMW Z4