Antique Road Show: What would Andy Warhol drive? This.

This road test may be irrelevant. Which wouldn’t necessarily make it unique to the pages of C/D. This time, however, it isn’t our fault. See, Bentley is going to create only 550 Brooklands—delivering the final one toward the end of 2009—and 549 of them are already spoken for. The grand-touring coupe you see on these pages, in a color Bentley calls “Porcelain,” is the last copy for sale. Or was at the time this was written.

But don’t sweat it. You probably couldn’t afford one anyway. The base Brooklands, including its $4500 guzzler tax, will set you back $348,085, “but practically no one is going out the door spending less than 400 grand,” notes Bentley’s PR guy. That’s because you’ll want add-ons like a $3190 retractable Flying B hood ornament, and you’d be crazy not to mix and match your Mulliner cockpit veneers—burr oak, burr walnut, bird’s-eye maple, olive ash, vavona, madrona, possibly even plywood—and any 5980-pound flagship wouldn’t be caught dead without the optional carbon-ceramic brake rotors, which will lighten your wallet by $29,270. (Right now, the reader may wish to reflect on vehicular purchases available to him for the cost of this car’s brakes alone.)
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Bentley has chosen to update its Continental Flying Spur super sedan for 2009 with the same model upgrades given to the Continental GT coupe last year, which means the sedan receives a more upright grille, larger lower air intakes, a new rear bumper, more sound deadening material, a new Naim for Bentley premium audio system, Adaptive Cruise Control, and a host of new hides and color choices for the interior. But wait, there’s more. So much more. While power for the standard Flying Spur stays put at 552bhp and 479 pound-feet of torque, a new model will kick things up a notch to 600bhp and 553 pound-feet. That’s right, just as the powerful and extremely fast Continental GT Speed coupe was born last year, so follows in its wide tire tracks the 2009 Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed, which will officially hit 60 mph in 4.5 seconds (that’s probably conservative) and crest 200 mph. The Flying Spur Speed also gets a 10mm chopped off its ride height, new 20-inch multispoke wheels with available carbon ceramic disc brakes, and returned steering and suspension systems. It’s outwardly different thanks to dark-tinted chrome matrix grilles, wider exhaust pipes, sill plates emblazoned with the word “Speed” on all four doors, a three-spoke steering wheel and unique interior trim. With this new Speed model, the Bentley Continental Flying Spur should have no trouble holding onto its title of World’s Best-Selling 12-Cylinder Sedan. Follow the jump for the official word from Crewe. Read more »