When I first walked up to the 2024 Bentley Flying Spur Edition 8 I’d be driving around Southern California in a parking garage below LAX, I was a bit disappointed. Usually, when I head out to LA, I do my best to get fun, sporty cars for my stay to take advantage of the wonderful roads we don’t get back in New York City, but it wasn’t to be this time. No, I was stuck with a massive Blue Crystal limousine that weighed more than my apartment building and seemingly couldn’t get around a corner without leaning so much that the door mirrors scrape the pavement. I figured it was fine because I’d be chauffeuring around my partner and my in-laws (they’re not really my in-laws, but saying “my girlfriend’s parents” seems very unserious) as we visited her sister’s family. It’s an old man spec, as my girlfriend said.
Well, as it turns out, I could not be more wrong. Sure, the Flying Spur lived up to the hype of being a luxury limousine for whoever was lucky enough to sit in the rear seats. Still, it also just so happens to be absolutely brilliant to drive in the canyons around Los Angeles. There’s a real argument to be made that this is one of the best cars in the world right now, and despite commanding an eye-watering $286,665 price tag, it may just be worth every last penny. Sometimes money can buy happiness, and that happiness is a 2024 Bentley Flying Spur.
Full Disclosure: Bentley lent me this 2024 Flying Spur with a full tank of gas to do with as I pleased for a week in Southern California.
Big luxury cars are not usually known for their performance abilities, so that is where the Flying Spur sets itself apart. At the center of it all is a brilliant twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 that puts out 542 horsepower and 568 lb-ft of torque, and all of that power is routed through a Porsche-derived eight-speed PDK dual-clutch gearbox. That’s enough to take this over-5,400-pound beast from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds, and if you keep your foot in it you’ll be just a couple of ticks below 200 mph. That is fast for any car, but it’s even more impressive if you do it with four occupants all getting massages. Not only does it sound fabulous, like some sort of WWII fighter plane, it goes like one, too. If that doesn’t feel like enough, the new 2025 model year Flying Spur has the same 771-horsepower V8 plug-in-hybrid system as the Continental GT Speed I drove earlier this year. I’m sure that motor in this application will be equally as mind-numbing.
Still, power and speed are not the Flying Spur’s real party trick when it comes to performance. What brings this car into a different league is how it goes around a corner. A car this big and this heavy has no business hustling up and down a mountain road in the Angeles National Forest like this, but here we are. Its steering is rather light, which is sort of to be expected, but the electric box is extremely communicative. You can feel just about everything on the road through your two-tone, leather-wrapped steering wheel, and what’s not to love about that? You get some body roll in high-G turns, but it’s hardly anything outrageous. I sort of liked it. It would feel wrong if a limo like this didn’t roll at least slightly.
Despite its sporty disposition, if you switch the excellent-feeling drive mode dial from Sport to Comfort or “Bentley” mode, everything becomes far more relaxed, the suspension softens, and you can quickly make your way down the highway, hearing nothing but whatever you’ve got on the radio. This is all thanks to Bentley’s very neat 48-volt active suspension system. What a machine.
On the outside, this thing is typical Bentley. It’s got a big, imposing chrome grille up front, flanked by those classic quad-circle headlights Bentley has become so known for (I’m still annoyed they were taken away on the new Conti GT). Body lines along the side of the Flying Spur really extenuate its already massive 209.3-inch length, and it all curves around back with some signature B-shaped taillights and quad exhaust tips, letting everyone know you’ve got a V8 Bentley. It’s not exactly a wildly new look, but why would you fix what isn’t broken?
Step inside and the Flying Spur Edition 8 gets even more serious. When it comes to luxury, fit and finish, this car is basically second to none. Sure, you can argue stuff like Rolls-Royces and Maybachs beat it in some ways, but I don’t care. Everything inside this car is just perfect. I’ve driven a hell of a lot of cars, and there’s a real argument to be made that the Flying Spur has the best interior on the market no matter which seat you’re in. Aside from the fact it’s very well-built, the design and layout are fantastic. There’s just the right amount of buttons, switches and knobs that complement the optional rotating “forbidden Toblerone” center display. There’s a screen for when you need it, but the second you don’t you can just press a button and three gauges appear instead, or just a blank trim panel. You can still control the car’s core functions through the gauge cluster, too. It’s the perfect blend of tech and old-school luxury. Of course, it’s all deeply customizable, so you can fit your Flying Spur with any sort of beautiful or awful interior spec you’d like.
In the back, the Flying Spur I drove was fitted with a three-across bench seat; the middle seat drops down into a center console with some cup holders and storage. In front of that console is a small LCD screen that controls just about everything in the car from lighting and navigation to the radio, window shades and, of course, the massage seats. That’s right folks, all four corners of the car get massage seats.
I mean, if you’re the type of person who can afford to be driven in a Flying Spur, you’re going to want a massage while it’s happening. It’s just purely charity that the front seats also get it, and your driver will thank you. Needless to say, all four seats are stupendously comfortable and spacious. In the rear, I was able to pretty much fully recline my 6-foot-1 frame behind my driving position, all while my noggin was resting on the pillowy microfiber headrest.
You could seriously live in this car, man, and you can take your stuff with you too. I was able to fit four carry-on suitcases, backpacks and other odds and ends into the trunk of the Flying Spur with very little issue. It makes very good use of the 14.8 cubic feet of trunk space it has.
The Edition 8 sort of marks the end of the line for Bentley and its non-hybrid 4.0-liter V8. It’s a bit silly because V8 is continuing on in a more powerful plug-in guise, but nevertheless, here it is. It’s a North American–exclusive package that groups a bunch of popular options like the rotating display, 22-inch wheels, comfort seats and some special stitching all to celebrate this motor. It starts at $224,800 including destination. If your Edition 8 isn’t feeling special enough just yet, you can add things like the $3,645 panoramic roof, $8,365 enhanced suspension system with four-wheel steering (which you should really do), $8,140 two-tone piano black veneer, $6,800 extra-special wheels, the nebulously-named $9,260 Touring Specification and a handful other multi-thousand-dollar options to get this car’s $286,665 as-tested price. This might shock you to hear, but I think this Flying Spur is actually worth it.
The Bentley Flying Spur really isn’t a car for folks like you or me. I mean, it costs over four times my yearly salary, but I do not care in the slightest. Few cars can be this fun to drive while also being an old-man-put-you-to-sleep-on-the-highway limousine. It’s really a car for the kind, conscientious oligarch — someone who wants ultimate luxury, but feels their driver should also have a good time every once in a while. That’s a sort of selflessness even I could get behind. It’s also a wonderful goodbye to the 4.0-liter V8, may it thunder on forever in our hearts.
