In the real world, the 435i – fast and
potentially slidey though it is – and its ilk will spend its life piling up and
down motorways and dual carriageways, loitering outside offices and
supermarkets and schools and, every once in a while, cutting loose down a nice
bit of B-road. And for that task, the 4-Series cab is all but as proficient as
the coupe. And when it’s sunny – and, even in the UK, you’re still more likely
to encounter a sunny day than to encounter an empty racetrack and a large stack
of free tyres – you can set the roof on its origami course into the boot and
revel in the unencumbered, manure-scented freedom of the British countryside.
Because driving, for those of us who aren’t
F1 pilots, is less about absolute, empirical excellence than it is about
sensation. And a convertible – much as you might baulk at its tanning parlour
undertones – gives you more sensory input than a coupe or hatch ever can: more
noise, more whoosh, more smell. A good drive is as much about hooking you into
the landscape as it is about hooking you into the innermost workings of your
car’s suspension. An experience, not a calculation.
A
lightly-tuned engine range is one of the new 4-series convertible's changes
over the old model
And so, the Bentley Continental GTC V8S, an
experience as magnificent as any that exists in motoring. The Conti is a grand,
daft, glorious event of a car, and in cabrio form it’s just the little bit
grander, dafter and gloriouser. If you’re buying a 16-foot, 2.4-tonne,
chrome-laden Bentley, why wouldn’t you have the convertible? Honestly, if
you’re the sort of person who can differentiate the handling of a Continental
coupe and Continental cabrio on normal roads, you’re not the sort of person
with whom I want a lift to the pub. Were you to thrash your Conti around Spa,
you’d discover the soft-top was slightly less precise than the coupe in the
corners, but exactly zero people have ever thrashed their Conti around Spa.
The
Bentley's twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 engine has 521bhp on tap
What are you losing by going cabrio?
Whispery, roof-up refinement? Not a bit of it. True, not so long ago, there was
no quicker way to ruin the serenity of a posh, hermetically sealed GT than by
fitting it with a canvas lid, expensively engineered in-cabin silence replaced
by the scream of wind penetrating every nook and cranny. No longer. At motorway
speeds, roof-up, nary a decibel of the nasty outside world permeates the
Conti’s cabin. And, when you do want noise, allow the Bentley’s roof its
several minutes of stately descent and then bathe in the delicious Saving Private
Ryan salvo of the big, blown V8. Why would you protect yourself from a sound so
violently sweet?
Two
cylinders and 875cc may suggest relaxed performance, but the TwinAir is swift
and will hit 108mph
If you’re still worried a convertible
diminishes your manliness, it’s time to get with the programme. This is the
second decade of the 21st century. Being manly – whether you’re a man or a
woman – no longer means stabbing salmon to death with pointy sticks and
cultivating a devastating roster of back hair. Manliness has embraced
moisturising, and not smelling like you’ve been entombed in a wheelie-bin
overnight. To cling to the notion a convertible is somehow more effete, more
tiara-and-sequin-stiletto than a coupe or hatch, is to remain trapped somewhere
in the mid-Nineties, wearing a Global Hypercolor T-shirt and waving a
glo-stick. Times have changed. The automobile has not reached the limit of its
development. Everything that can be invented has not been invented. Charles
Holland Duell could’ve told you that.
