THERE are probably more conspicuous cars in which to drive than a Bentley convertible, even one painted fire engine red and with a full-throttle exhaust note that starts somewhere near Brian Blessed getting his hand slammed in the lid of a piano and ends up at the great eruption of Vesuvius, writes William Scholes.
But there aren't many. The Batmobile, the Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee and Del Boy's Reliant Robin are three I can think of, but even a Ferrari or Aston Martin won't turn heads and, erm, attract the opinions of the general public with quite the regularity that this particular £200k Bentley managed.
The shouty paintwork has to take a lot of the blame. Cars like this really shouldn't be painted in colours that the emergency services normally use. My time with this wonderful, extraordinary car cemented my opinion that unless you live in taste-free California, Dubai or a Premier League footballer's gated community, sombre hues of black, grey, dark blue and green are the only sensible option.
The Ferrari and Aston Martin references aren't completely facetious either. If you're in the happy position to be able to buy a car in the price bracket of this Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible, you will almost certainly have considered an offering from those other marques.
So why go for the Bentley? Because it is absolutely fantastic, that's why. And it has a bit more room for passengers, and a bigger boot, though those sorts of purely practical considerations are why you've also got a Range Rover in the garage.
Now, you might have driven nice cars before - maybe a top-of-the-range BMW or Mercedes-Benz - but a Bentley is a notch, and then some, above anything else you will have experienced.
The uninitiated and the ignorant will try and tell you that a Bentley is little more than a tarted up Volkswagen.
Sure, VW bought the company in 1998, with the first new model under its stewardship, the Continental GT, debuting in 2003. And yes, there are significant pieces of hardware under the skin that are shared with other Volkswagen Group products.
But to conclude from that lineage that a Continental is a jumped up Passat would be like saying Shakespeare and the latest tweet by Harry from One Direction should both be considered literature because they're both written in English.
The Bentley is hand-built, bespoke to the owner's requirements like a tailored suit, and, as you would hope, the fit and finish is exquisite.
Open the reassuringly heavy driver's door and slide into the diamond-stitched driver's seat - trimmed in leather of superlative quality and texture, naturally - and everything you see and touch is exceptional.
The leather in 'my' car was a colour called Beluga - you know, like the caviar; that might sound pretentious in an Audi A6, but it's somehow completely appropriate for a Bentley,
You can tell there's real craftsmanship at work in the way the stitching on the leather trim lines up, in the smooth action of the organ stop-style air vent controls, in the machined pieces of aluminium around the dashboard and deep centre console.
It's a wonderful place to sit, and things improve considerably when you push the button to start the engine.
'Engine' is an almost inadequate description for this 12-cylinder, twin-turbo force of nature.
Bentley knows a thing or dozen about 12-cylinder engines - it makes more of them than any other manufacturer - and the the headlines in the 'Speed' version I sampled are 633bhp, 620lb/ft, 200mph-plus and 0-60mph in 4.0 seconds.
That only gives an outline sketch of how the Continental goes about its business.
Filling in the detail, in glorious Technicolor, is acceleration so strong that unsuspecting passengers will have their breath taken away.
I visited full throttle properly only twice; the first time was in the service of journalistic endeavour, the second to make sure I hadn't been imagining things.
I hadn't; the Bentley accelerates hard enough to rearrange One Direction Harry's hair style.
The engine's gargantuan power output is a significant reason for this, but even it plays second fiddle to the W12's monumental torque.
Think of your car's engine as a boxer; power is how quickly it punches, but torque is how hard it hits. Torque, then, is the invisible hand that pushes and pulls you along the road as you depress the throttle. It's arguably more relevant to everyday driving than outright power, and is one of the reasons that so many people prefer torquier diesel engines to their petrol counterparts.
In the Bentley's case, such is the engine's torque that it doesn't so much push you along the road as pick you up and drop kick you towards the horizon. The Speed's full complement of torque seems to be available from around a lowly 2,000rpm all the way to the red line, a characteristic that if you charted it on a graph would give a line as flat and extensive as the Antrim Plateau. This is what gives the Speed epic acceleration, no matter what speed you are travelling at, no matter what gear you are in.
Conversely, it also imbues the Continental with the other side of its character, that of easy-going cruiser. This is a GT in the finest Grand Tourer tradition; comfortable, refined and able to isolate driver and passengers from the outside world. The soft-top roof of the convertible test car is quieter than almost any hard-top you have ever travelled in.
Hopeless fuel consumption ultimately counts against the Bentley's long distance cruiser credentials; not because that anyone who has bought a car of this sort is likely to be worried about sub-20mpg, but because it means the inconvenience of having to stop to refuel every 250 miles or so...
Drive briskly, and you will, and you can watch the fuel gauge move, which is almost as disconcerting as the improbable forces of acceleration, braking and cornering that this 2.5 tonne four-seat soft-top can not only conjur up but also control. Engineering has been harnessed to defy the laws of gravity, physics and common sense; brilliant.
The brakes, expensively upgraded to carbon ceramics on the test car, are up to the job of reining it all in, with puffs of smoke the only indication of the exertions being placed on the discs...
The Continental is one of those large cars that is easy to place on the road, making it more relevant to Northern Ireland's narrower roads than you might at first imagine.
Also worthy of praise is a tremendous sense of stability - the car's weight helps here, but so too does four-wheel-drive and a chassis engineered from the very top drawer. All convertibles are afflicted to some extent by what is called scuttle shake, the juddering sensation that is sometimes transmitted into the cabin as a consequence of a loss of rigidity from taking the roof off a car, but in the Continental it is almost imperceptible - a huge achievement in such a large car.
Niggles are few, but worth noting. The controls to adjust the seat can be awkward, chassis settings are adjusted via a menu on the touchscreen when a button would seem easier, the sat-nav and other tech lags behind what you'll find in a Volkswagen Golf and the paddles to manually override the automatic gearbox are awkward to use and ill befitting a car with a six-figure price tag. A new Continental, scheduled for next year, will presumably address the dated in-car technology.
I also had the chance to spend some time with a Bentley Flying Spur, which is essentially the limousine you buy when a Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series is a little too common.
As you would expect, acres of rear legroom, even more refinement than the Continental and similarly peerless performance are part of the Flying Spur package.
Arguably, the S-Class better isolates passengers from the bumps of Northern Ireland's roads and the 7 Series is a keener driver's car, but then both of those also see service as taxis, which is not a fate likely to befall the Flying Spur. This is A Good Thing, as far as Bentley customers are concerned.
Like the Continental, the Flying Spur makes you feel special when you travel in it as a passenger or get behind the steering wheel as a driver.
To instil every journey with a sense of occasion is the mission statement of every automobile in the top tier of the luxury car world.
Bentley does that in spades, along the way giving its cars a breadth and depth of talent that no other car in its rarified atmosphere can match; these are cars you can use every day, which is not something you can necessarily say about an Aston Martin or Ferrari.
Statements don't come much bigger than a Bentley Flying Spur limousine or a fire engine red Continental GT Speed Convertible.
Well, they do, actually - what about an even bigger limo or a full-size SUV? - but don't worry; Bentley will sell you one of those too, in the form of a Mulsanne or Bentayga.
Some will feel ambiguous about the Bentley image - too footballer's wife, too brash, too Jay-Z - but others will see these amazing cars for what they are: awesomely capable, beautifully built and magnificently engineered. In other words, start saving...
:: AT A GLANCE
Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible
Price: £186,375. As tested £203,950. Options included: dark tint aluminium fascia panels, centre console and roof console; deep pile overmats to front and rear; first aid kit and warning triangle; storage case to centre console; adaptive cruise control; battery charger: GPS tracking system; bluetooth telephone system with privacy handset; 4G enabled wifi hotspot; carbon ceramic brakes with red painted callipers; space saving spare wheel
Engine and transmission: 6.0-litre W12 twin-turbo petrol, eight-speed automatic gearbox, four-wheel-drive; 633bhp, 620lb/ft
Performance: Top speed 204mph, 0-60mph in 4.0 seconds
Fuel consumption: 19.0mpg (EU combined); 16.7mpg ('real world')
CO2, road tax and benefit in kind: 347g/km - £1,120 in first year, then £515 annually - 37 per cent
Euro Ncap safety rating: Not yet tested
:: AT A GLANCE
Bentley Flying Spur V8
Price: £143,700. As tested £172,000. Options included: carbon ceramic brakes with black painted callipers, space saving spare wheel, climate boost for rear passengers, digital TV tuner, rear seat entertainment and connectivity, rear view camera, 'Naim for Bentley' premium audio, adaptive cruise control, battery charger, GPS tracking system, refrigerated bottle cooler, veneered picnic tables - with vanity mirrors, Mulliner specification, hand stitching to steering wheel in contrasting colour.
Engine and transmission: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbo petrol, eight-speed automatic gearbox, four-wheel-drive; 500bhp, 487lb/ft
Performance: Top speed 183mph, 0-60mph in 4.9 seconds
Fuel consumption: 25.9mpg (EU combined); 19.2mpg ('real world')
CO2, road tax and benefit in kind: 254g/km - £885 in first year, then £500 annually - 37 per cent
Euro Ncap safety rating: Not yet tested
