Gracious and beautiful! A car which epitomizes the saying, "the journey is the essence of the destination!". I guess everything in this world has its given time and place and I am lucky to have known the existence of these objects of excellence. I just wish that I had the wealth to afford this beauty!
Last of the separate chassis cars, the Bentley "S" series was a badge engineered Roller but the badge had a bit more reserve and a little less bling. A little more old money and a little less lottery winner.
This is one of those vehicles that, when new, was likened to the badge-engineering equivalent that BBC did to there marques. It's always the way; distance adds enchantment to the ordinary.
I once drove a LWB example (James Young). It's hard to describe how primitive the "handling" characteristics were. It rolled, swayed and pitched. Braking at very slow speeds was iffy but better at higher speeds due to the really odd servo mechanism driven by the ancient GM transmission. Going straight it was fine but, in any traffic, one had to plan ahead and hope everyone else was rational. The car was gorgeous, of course, and the interior was truly elegant. I also drove a friend's then new Continental that was built near the very end of the run before the sale of the company. Again, it was incredibly gorgeous and very powerful but the suspension really wasn't up the task of dealing with both the weight and the power. The owner, for whom money was never a consideration or an obstacle, was unable to keep the thing on the road. He sold it after fewer than 2 yrs.
