Bentley Special! | The Car Podcast #80
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
32:18
Concept
one of 208 made
They’re pointing out how few of these cars were built. When a car is rare like that, it usually becomes more valuable—especially if it’s been kept original.
Company
Mulliner
Mulliner is Bentley’s in-house team that helps make cars more personal and luxurious. It’s the part of Bentley that handles special trim and custom details.
Company
Lotus
Lotus is a car company famous for handling and suspension engineering. Here, they’re credited with helping design the suspension on this Bentley.
Part
rear anti-roll bar
A rear anti-roll bar helps keep the car from leaning too much when you turn. Without it, the car can feel softer or more “tippy” in corners.
Concept
speed restriction
They’re talking about the legal speed limits that stop you from driving as fast as you might want. So instead of focusing on speed, you focus on enjoying the drive anyway.
Concept
potholes
Potholes are holes or broken patches in the road. They make driving less smooth and often force you to slow down to avoid damaging the car.
Concept
slow travel
They’re talking about enjoying the trip by going slower instead of trying to drive fast. The idea is to stay relaxed and make the most of the drive even when roads and traffic limit you.
Concept
rationed
“Rationed” refers to limiting access to fuel or energy by allocating a fixed amount to people or activities. The speaker is using it as a thought experiment to discuss how scarcity would change driving habits and priorities.
Term
veneers
Veneers are thin slices of nicer-looking wood used on the dashboard or trim. They help the interior look more premium without using solid wood everywhere.
Concept
rationing
Rationing means there isn’t enough of something for everyone, so the government limits how much each person can get. In this story, it’s about fuel, so people had to focus on what mattered most instead of trying to buy everything they wanted.
Concept
lift and coast
Lift and coast is when you take your foot off the gas and let the car slow down a bit on its own. It can save fuel because the engine isn’t working as hard.
Car
2003 Bentley Azure
Bentley Azure is a very luxurious Bentley meant for comfortable long drives. The 2003 version is from the early 2000s and is all about comfort and style.
Concept
Pacific Coast Highway
Pacific Coast Highway is a famous scenic drive along the California coast. People love it for road trips because the views are amazing.
Concept
Targa Florio
Targa Florio is a legendary race in Sicily. People bring it up because it’s the kind of old-school, twisty-road racing that’s really tied to the island’s roads.
Term
roof off
“Roof off” means the car is being driven like a convertible, with the top down. It’s usually louder and feels more open, like you’re more connected to the drive.
Term
torque
Torque is the force that makes the car pull forward. More torque usually means it feels easier to accelerate, especially when you’re not flooring it.
Term
heating system
A car’s heating system warms the air for the cabin. It uses heat from the engine and a fan to push that warm air inside.
Term
analogue
Analogue controls are the old-school kind—usually dials and knobs you can feel. Instead of screens and buttons, you turn something and the change happens right away.
Brand
Bentley badges
Bentley is a luxury car brand. They’re pointing out the brand badge on the car’s interior and talking about how it’s lit (or not lit) as part of the overall design.
Term
vent opening and closing
The vents are the air outlets in the cabin. Opening and closing them changes how much air you get and where it flows.
Term
footprint
“Footprint” refers to how much space the car occupies—its overall size and how it fits into tight roads, parking, and narrow lanes. The speaker is saying the car feels surprisingly manageable despite looking large.
Concept
no motorways
Avoiding motorways is a driving-route concept that changes the experience: more town roads, country lanes, and twisty sections typically mean more steering feel, braking modulation, and comfort over varied surfaces. It also tends to highlight how a car behaves at lower speeds and on tighter roads.
Term
turbine
A turbine is an engine that makes power using spinning blades. It can behave differently than a normal car engine, especially in how it responds.
Term
heated seats
Heated seats are seats with built-in warmers. They help keep you comfortable when it’s cold, even if the car’s roof is off.
Concept
roundabout
A roundabout is a circular intersection. Cars go around in a loop, and you usually have to give way to traffic already going around.
Concept
armrests
Armrests are the padded supports you rest your arms on inside the car. Here, the car was ordered without them because the owner didn’t like them and preferred space for a handbag.
Term
door pocket
A door pocket is a storage recess in the inside panel of a car door, typically used for small items like maps, bottles, or snacks. The speaker is describing the “very deep door pocket” as a place where you could store sweets, emphasizing how much usable space it offers.
Term
thick glass
Armored vehicles often use thick, multi-layer ballistic glass to protect occupants. This adds significant weight and can change how the car feels (steering response, suspension loading) and how well occupants can see.
Term
horn
The horn is the car’s warning sound. They’re saying this one is unusually good or funny-sounding, like a “bullhorn,” not just a normal beep.
Concept
insured for £10 million
They’re saying the car is so valuable that the insurance value is about £10 million. That’s why everyone is being careful and not messing around.
Term
Saloon, convertible, two-door coupe, W12
They’re listing different body styles—like saloon, convertible, and a two-door coupe—and mentioning the engine type. “W12” means it has a 12-cylinder Bentley engine with a special layout.
LIVE
Hello, and welcome to the car podcast with Chris Harris and his friends.
As you can see, if you're watching this, you have a different view of the four of us.
We're sitting in a 1953 Bentley R-type Continental, one of 208 made, and we think one of the most
beautiful cars ever.
We're having a Bentley visit and we've decided to record a podcast here.
We're going to record our little section in different heritage Bentley vehicles.
We've started with, I think, the best.
We're starting at the top.
This is episode 80.
It's lovely to have you along.
And I'll start with a factoid.
I've just spoken to someone that is closely involved with Mulliner, Bentley's trim and
personalisation programme, and they've just told me, I love this, that the original Bentley
R-Nage, the first-generation car, had no rear anti-roll bar because Lotus did the suspension
and they don't know roll bars.
After that, they had roll bars.
The first note on our agenda today is something that I read in the newspapers earlier.
It was in The Times this.
It says here, work from home and drive slower to say fuel, energy, watchdog says.
It looks like we might be heading into fuel shortage territory and it would be easy for
people to assume that our advice would be get loads of fuel and drive around in a Cayenne
turbo because the world's going wrong.
But I think we should offer some sensible sage advice for those people that might not
be able to drive the whole time, or if you can't buy fuel or if it's not available or
it's too expensive.
I'm going to go straight to Neil Clifford.
I want him to tell us what his advice for someone that was presented with that information
would be.
Well, I think our London mayor helps us do that naturally.
I think on the basis that it's almost 20 miles an hour everywhere you go where I drive, I
think he's helping us.
Maybe he was ahead of himself.
Head of the game.
Head of the game.
I suppose for me, I enjoy driving slowly.
So there's no big stress for me about, oh my God, I have to be careful.
I think driving is as pleasurable driving slowly as it is driving fast, isn't it?
And I suppose we've got no real choice anyway, have we, because our speed restriction situation
and our potholes and our traffic does sort of restrict us our pleasure in any case.
So you have to get your pleasure of where you can get it.
Make a necessity of the virtue of the necessity.
You're sitting in the driver's seat, which is obviously deeply ironic given the four of
us.
And worrying.
But you do look quite natural there.
What's your advice for slow travel in the UK?
I think in these situations, you should lead by example.
So instead of driving low once a year, I'll drive a alternate year.
I think that's going to be my big fuel saving gig.
But seriously, I think Neil's got a point.
We can do 19 miles an hour in central London.
I'm just going to back off to 16, that's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to hold up traffic.
It's going to be like you literally like a virtual safety car being behind me in central
London.
Two-thirds normal speed and then bang, I'm gone.
I wrote a column about this years ago, more than 20 years ago, and I imagined a world
in which there was not enough fuel or not enough energy and we were all rationed.
So I imagined a rationed book situation and also an idea that you had to prioritise your
life.
And I think, I mean, we're all different, but if you said to me I had a certain number
of joules of energy allowed per week, I'd prioritise driving.
I'd live in a smaller house, a colder house, I wouldn't fly, I'd sacrifice holidays, but
I'd knock about in a V12 Ferrari.
That's what I'd like to do.
And I suppose pressure moments like this remind me of that thinking.
So I think it's right to think about how you operate.
I would work from home, I wouldn't commute, but I'd be, I'm looking to protect the stuff
that really matters.
And that is Sunday, go for a squirt in the car, Saturday, go and watch kids play sport
and then drive home with the kids after the sports match.
The long way round.
The long way round.
So I'm always looking to protect the bit that would really upset me if it went.
And the drive to work, the drive to the airport, I couldn't give a shit about really.
It's just, I find joy in it, but I don't really, I'm just not enjoyable.
The other thing is, and we're sitting in an example of it right now, if you want to
drive slowly, do it in an old car.
Yes.
Do it.
I mean, this, honestly, we're sitting in, I'll describe it to you and we'll put a couple
of cutaways in now, the veneers, the wood, the ambience of this interior is something
to behold.
And it wouldn't matter if you were doing 20 or 200 miles an hour, it's just as special,
isn't it?
It is.
Even when we've let the children sit in the front and the grown-ups are sitting in the
front, it's funnier in the front this time.
It is just fun.
The chat here is of a higher quality than it is back there.
Well, you know.
And what are your thoughts on driving slowly?
Something that you're not very good at on a track, it has to be so.
Well, no, it is well, or not crashing.
I think, unusually, I think you've said something of enormous wisdom and virtue, Mr. Harris.
Pause the camera there.
I'm joking.
Carry on.
Carry on.
Yep.
We could stop the podcast now.
Stop.
We've reached the peak.
We've reached the peak.
The idea of rationing, what's the year of this crisis?
53.
53.
So 53, there was still some rationing in the UK, maybe other countries around the world.
And the mindset of that was exactly what you've just described.
And I'm genuinely impressed, Chris, that there's a real little nut of wisdom to say you have
to rational, you have to prioritize.
Yeah.
And to prioritize the things that are important to you, and it just, it's a sense of we can't
have everything.
We try and do as much as we can.
And I think that's rather than fighting or queuing, for goodness sake, don't all go
and queue at petrol stations.
Yeah.
Now I've said don't go and queue at petrol stations.
That's what everyone will do.
And I think, so don't panic, just don't just do something, just stand there.
Yesterday, when we had a lovely day yesterday, so I drove up the M40 and the M6 in this beautiful
Bentayga speed, and I met Manish and Neil at the station, picked them up.
We had a very gentle little drive across the Cheshire countryside to where we stayed last
night.
And you and I had a nice drive here this morning.
That sunset last night.
Sunset last night.
And we just drove very slowly, and I think lift and coast, if we were to be very, very
practical, and this is a little bit of wisdom to add to Chris's, try and hold a longer gear.
Don't keep changing gear.
It's a longer gear, a higher number.
A higher number.
A higher number.
And let the torque of the vehicle.
And I think if we do all that with Chris's wisdom guiding all of this, we'll be fine.
Well, there you go.
I think we've answered that one for you people.
So just take it steady, prioritise fun over menial stuff.
Keep pushing.
How about buying the cheaper petrol?
Should we be buying the cheaper petrol?
If your car needs decent petrol, it needs decent petrol.
I think it's like wine.
If your budget gets tight, you drink the same wine, you drink less of it.
Exactly.
Worse to live by.
We're now going to move from the 1953 R-Type Continental to an Azure, which is over in
the other side of Bentley Territor's Connection.
I'd really like working like this.
It's coming to you every week.
We're now going to move across.
We've moved to the 2003 Bentley Azure.
We've swapped positions so the adults are now in the front as they should be.
This is magnificent.
A simple question to my learned colleagues.
You've got this car for one month.
You can see the outside shot now.
It's beautiful.
It's dark blue with a linen interior.
You have this car for one month.
Where do you go?
What do you do?
And you have a fuel car.
Don't worry about that.
Moving on, obviously in our imaginary world, there's ample fuel for everyone.
Manish, where are you going for a month?
I have been reading lots of noirs recently, all the Raymond Chandlers and other bits and
pieces.
And I am fascinated by the idea that there's a kind of Los Angeles that you don't know
about that existed back in the 50s and 60s.
So I'm taking this car to LA for a month.
I'm going to find all these, as well as things like the Pacific Coast Highway and the Obvious
Roads, I am going to go and find all these beautiful old back streets.
These amazing old irons.
I'm going to find Hollywood stars, homes that have become decrepit.
I'm going to do things like that.
I'm going to be doing that for a month, reliving every single Chandler, what's his name, Ding
Dong, and Ding Dong's novels.
That's what this is going to do for me.
I think that's Bob Bond.
The other thing you could do, of course, if you're reliving that era, is you could then
bomb down to Palm Springs and see just how weird that place.
That is the weirdest place I've been to in many years.
Go to Bob Hope's house, not Bob Munkhouse.
Bob Hope.
Bob Hope.
Maybe Munkhouse had a house, Bob Hope's house, coolest house in the world, Google that.
Do you remember that?
You've got two hopes.
Bob Open, no hope.
He also owned, he, Dean Martin, all of those guys owned pretty much all the land between
a place called Canyon Lake and Palm Springs.
I mean, they were big landowners.
It would be beautiful to drive this, actually, in the desert.
Go to Vegas.
It's sitting in a proper four-seat convertible, it's a real four-seat convertible.
I could travel in this.
It narrows a bit boat-like in the back here, so we're shoulders to shoulder.
We need to get Mr Cooper a uniform and a hat, but I think, apart from that, this is...
Or me.
I've got it.
Look, I've got it.
Neil Clifford, where are you going for a month in this?
Right.
I am going, I'm doing Europe.
I'm cruising down through the middle of France, a bit of champagne, a bit of cheese, a bit
of chicken, all of those brown signs that you see that you always drive past them.
I'd be stopping at those brown signs.
Chicken months.
Yeah, they're chicken.
There's that chicken place, isn't there, when you're driving to somewhere.
There's that giant chicken in the middle of the roundabout.
There is, yeah.
You're right.
Yeah.
What's the posh chickens that you can only buy in this place in France?
Quite a fast one.
Yeah.
The corn fed ones that are yellow are very expensive.
Those ones.
Yeah, so I'd be doing cheese, cheese, chicken.
I'd end up in Switzerland, I'd have three or four days in Switzerland, driving the Alps
over the passes in the summer, and then I'd head down into Italy, and I would take two
weeks right the way through Italy, Tuscany, down through the middle, down through the south,
and I'd end up in Tuscany, no, I'd end up in Sicily, of course, because Tuscany is not
the bottom.
Sicily is at the bottom.
There's no bridge, so you get on the little ferry, and I'd have a couple of weeks just
chilling out in Sicily, a little bit of Targa Florio, some posh hotels, a little bit of White
Lotus, you know, disappear into a little village for a week.
No one knows where you are, where you need to hide.
That's where you go, Sicily.
Are you chickening this cart?
You're going to eat chicken now, aren't you?
No, I think you're doing seafood and pasta, and a bit of chili, because there's a little
bit of sort of Moroccan influence down in Sicily, isn't there, a bit of spicy pizza
or even a bit of chili oil.
Are you driving fast or are you driving slow?
I'm driving slow.
Are you?
Yeah, I'm driving slow.
I've never had one of these with the roof off.
This is absolutely fast.
How fast do you think this would go, because the speed at which we used to do it was a
little under me.
How far does it go?
170.
170 would be nice.
Our friend Merlin daily'd one of these for a couple of years, didn't he?
This would do 140 miles an hour easily.
They've got ample torque, these.
And it's fair to say this is the best designed heating system ever made in a car.
It just works, doesn't it?
There's roller things.
You roll it and it changes the temperature.
Yeah, it's analogue.
Not sort of...
Simple as that.
You've got two horns, you've got everything you need, you've got dials that are all slightly
different colour.
Yeah.
Put the lights on.
Yeah.
You've got Bentley badges that aren't illuminated that Mr Clark would wish he...
Pull us a knurled knob on the heater, just to show us the vent opening and closing.
Pull us one of those, oh.
And this here, look how beautifully that moves and damp.
I'd never thought I'd play with a knob on YouTube.
No.
There you go.
Well, this is the first time for everything.
Chris Cooper, where are you going for your month in the 2000s?
I'm tempted by your exoticism and we had this conversation about, can a British car
be exotic if it's in Britain?
And I think it can be.
And I think this is the...
I mean, we're looking here out at a sea of just wonderful...
We should have done this before.
This is the best of British, this car.
And I think a month of the best of British would just be perfect.
I mean, we're doing what's in middle of March, third week of March, sun's come out, a few
little green shoots on the trees, daffodils are starting to fade, birdsong, gone past
the equinox, days are longer than the night.
I think there's a month where you'd start in Cornwall, and I think you'd mosey up some
really lovely beaches with not many people on them, because the footprint of his car
is actually surprisingly compact, isn't it?
It's a beautiful car, it's got presence and scale, but it's not mahusive that you think
I couldn't drive it down a little.
It was massive before they built all the massive cars.
And then they built massive cars and suddenly it's not matter anymore.
So you do sort of Cornwall and a bit of Devon, south and north Devon, and I think you go
up through a bit of Wales, no motorways, try and avoid the motorways, and then I know
I'd end up on the west coast of Scotland, but you go through a bit of the Peak District,
and there's just lovely food and just a beauty.
Some of it you could make progress on, because I think friendly people everywhere.
So I would think it would be a best of British.
Lake District?
Definitely Lake District.
Can't see Bluebird.
Is it going to run again this year?
I think they've run the boat.
They're going to have a go this year on Coniston to get it up to speed again.
We should go there.
That's what we do this car, we'd all go in this car together.
We go to Coniston and we see Bluebird run again with that engine, that turbine running
again, proper running, first time since, was it January 67 when he very sadly died?
She's going, she's going.
His famous words when the thing back flipped because he ran over the wake, because he was
very impatient and he ran over the wake and he'd done over 300 miles on that water coast.
So all of that is best of British.
So that's what I do.
Where would you end up in Scotland?
So I think you do, I mean, everyone's going to be laughing at me.
I definitely want to take this on the Glenelg Ferry, and I want to do a bit of the, thank
you for prompting me, definitely want to do a bit of the North Coast 500 and the Northeast
500.
I grew up a little bit in the Northeast and that North Coast of Banffshire and towards
Aberdeenshire where the film Local Hero was filmed.
That was a very pretty little village.
And then down through the Cairngorms, and I'm telling you why I'd go to, I would look
out for where the WRC Scotland is going to be in 2027, and I sort of cased the joint
and see where we could go and watch.
Yeah.
A bit of wrecking.
So you've got three, two different heated seats, so you can drive with the roof off in
Scotland, but with the heated seats.
I think it'd be perfect.
Where are you driving to then, Mr Harris?
This is tempered by what I've been doing early this week.
I've just been in Northern Spain.
We don't often talk about Spain as a destination for driving, but I was in Navarra, in the
region of Navarra.
The roads, they are of supreme quality.
They're as good as the best French roads.
There's no one there.
There's no patches.
It's just seamless asphalt.
There's no litter.
I think Northern Spanish roads might be the best in Europe, and that's a controversial
statement.
But I'll stand by it.
You're in Riocco, so you can go and drink the best wines.
You are near San Sebastian, so if you want to, you can nip up there and eat the best
food.
I mean, you're not far away from other parts of France that are fascinating, so Carcassonne,
so you can go and have a big tub of cassoulet if you want all that stuff.
Can you get chicken?
I want to get chicken.
The meal comes, will you?
No, that's the French chicken.
It's on the roundabout.
Oh, darling, we're going to France for chicken.
It's a big cock right under the roundabout.
And the drive down, you see, is you're coming down Le Mans, so you're going to take your
azure to Arnard's corner and explain why you're there and you haven't got an Arnard's.
Then you can drive all the way down, you could go via Bordeaux, you could go to Angoulême
and you could see the street circuit there, maybe watch the racing where they're racing
in Angoulême.
Amazing street racing in Angoulême.
A mate that does that.
You could nip across then and you could do the Milau Bridge if you wanted to, so you
could zigzag your way down and you could end up, and I wouldn't go much further than
that, because if you get further down into Spain it becomes less appealing, I think.
Although Manich fell in love with Madrid, didn't you?
You went there recently, that's a stunning place to be.
Oh my days, I could live there.
I actually could live there.
I've got no Spanish though.
You've got no Spanish.
Pick it up, pick it up really quickly.
So that would be, I thought I was going to give you something really exotic like get
the car shipped to Mongolia or whatever, but actually I think for me probably just
Northern Spain at the moment, I was knocked sideways by the quality of the roads, how
quiet they were, and how little litter there was.
The older I get the more sensitive I am to litter.
I look around, I judge the civility of a country now on two basic factors, litter, mobile phone
signal.
It's all I'm looking for.
Yes.
It should be in the back of the Economist, frankly, in one of those bright...
That's the data, that's the metric by which all countries should be judged.
Northern Spain, brilliant phone signal, no litter.
Yeah, it's like Japan, I've been in Japan this week, no litter at all, anywhere in the
whole country.
Well, we're going to move from...
Just on this one, have any of us decided to take the Bentley Asia to the Côte d'Azur?
Did anybody do that?
No.
No.
Because that would be a cliche.
Can we do that the next month?
That would be an cliche.
Yeah, and French food's overrated.
It is, yeah.
Although the chicken's good.
Right, so we're going to move from the Bentley Asia 2003 to a car that is so special, we
will announce what it is when we walk towards it.
Out we get.
Come on, let me out of here.
Item three on the agenda.
Oh no, I've got to say what car we're in.
Right, here we go.
We are in a Bentley Maltan that was the car that drove our late, much lamented, recently
passed, Queen Elizabeth II.
This was her car.
So it was one of, I think, it was the only car allowed to be used on the public highway
without a number plate.
She didn't require the car to be registered or have a number plate.
We'll show you some details.
It has got the raw crest on the doorcaps.
Outside it's a dark green and inside it's a sort of darker linen colour.
It was specified without armrests in the front because she didn't like armrests and because
that's where a handbag would go.
And it is possibly the coolest car in the factory.
What does it say on the bottom there?
Oh, it's got a name high-five because she liked listening to very loud brams, I made
that bit up.
We thought we'd have to ask a mature question to ourselves to reflect how much we respect
this vehicle.
So first of all, we're going to go for what's the best poo you've ever done in a service
station, but then we thought that would be too churlish and not allowable.
And I think that would be disrespectful as well.
So I think we should talk about travel suites because I believe Brenda would have been partial
to a travel suite and I'd like us to maybe ruminate on what type of travel suite or
commestible she would have liked to have consumed while she was sitting.
Wait for it.
In this seat here.
Oh, why have you done that?
I've just started it.
Why have you done that?
Twice you've started it.
Can you not start the car again?
I'm just getting ready to drive.
Just stop it.
There'll be emergency at any point with a man just in here.
You must be unmanageable as a child.
I mean, if you say don't do that.
If you say don't do something, he just does it.
You know what I did on the way here yesterday?
Very quickly.
Yeah.
What?
What?
In the Bontega yesterday, in traffic, I pressed a button just because I wanted to press a
button and the tailgate opened at about 30 miles an hour, going through Nantwich.
I'm amazed it lets you do that.
I've just done that now.
This morning, just to let you know, this morning, we had to wait one minute for a third car
to join us, leaving the hotel to come to the factory.
So I said to Chris, are you going to wait?
And he went, no.
And then drove the wrong way out of the hotel.
I did do that.
I did do that.
Extraordinary.
That minute.
This is, don't forget, this is not your podcast.
This is our therapy.
Don't for a minute think we're doing this for you.
This is for us.
So, sweets, I have got something revelationary to reveal on this one, but Manish, you go
first on what your sweet choice would be or what you think Her Majesty's sweet choice
would have been.
I think Her Majesty would have gone for one or both of Spangles, 1970s sucking sweet,
which is, and they made them in coca-cola flavours.
I can imagine her going, Charles, pass me a coca-cola, Spangle please, this is a long
journey.
And the other one has to be a roundtree's fruit pastel black currant flavour.
Really?
Bet you can't put one in your mouth without chewing it.
I think she'd have gone for one.
Do you remember when they did special edition just red and black pastels in your chew?
Oh, yes.
They still do.
When you get a yellow one, you're like, come on.
Even the lime one.
No, I like the green.
Do you like the green one?
Yeah, I like the green.
The yellow one, for me, is like going outside and getting a shat on by a bird.
Yeah.
It's like, I just don't need it at all.
What's he doing now?
Why are we allowed him to sit in the driver's seat in this car?
He's just pressing buttons and...
Great driving position.
Right, uncontrolled child, let's get him to talk about sweets then he'll stop messing
with the car.
Can we put some Ritalin in his sweet?
Yes.
Yes.
Mr. Cooper, what do you imagine Her Majesty would have eaten in this car?
Do you know what?
I was thinking that as I was just gently caressing the very deep door pocket in the driver's
door here.
For the gun.
And I think you'd be tooled up, but I think also you'd have space in here for those old
used to have boxes of smarties.
Oh, a box of smarties.
A car full of box of smarties.
Box of smarties.
You'd have in there.
And I think you've got in the door pocket as well.
But certainly, and I have to say, I've got to say this, because we may never see this
car again, what a fantastic driving position Her Majesty's chauffeur would have had.
You can get the seat right down, because we know that's the best place to have a seat.
The wheels right here, it's right there.
You could attack anybody or adverse situation from behind the wheel of this car, Her Majesty.
But also like the fact that this car is not a full B6 armored one.
It's a normal car.
It doesn't have the stupid thick glass on it.
I didn't do that.
Right.
That was him.
Oh, there we go.
Too much fiddling going on.
Okay, we keep still now.
There's a siren in the car.
If I can try and drag us back to the box of smarties.
I think box of smarties, and wasn't she a fan of fruit and nut as well?
We have no idea.
I think she's a fan of fruit and nut.
Box of smarties.
Okay, box of smarties.
Neil Clifford.
I was going to go smarties, but the problem is with the smartie strategy is there is
no fridge, because there should be a little fridge here.
Oh, that's a good call.
Smarties, there's a bit of a melting risk.
Yeah, there is.
There's no fridge back here either.
Which is, I was also going to go fruit pastel.
That fridge is in my Audi.
Fruit pastel is a risk, because it's the little tiny bits of sugar, and they can be gritty.
Gritty.
So, I'm going fruit gum, which actually are my favourites, really.
The fruit gums, the ones that once you start, you have to finish, and then, well, no, the
mixed bag.
Okay.
You know, the little yellow moon shape, the little green lime, the little…
But don't they just congeal as well?
They're a bit tricky on the teeth.
They can pull a crown out, and I think Her Majesty would have had some dental issues.
They could have, I mean, can you imagine round trees being responsible for removing a royal
crown?
I think she's good on the crown.
Do you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's a crown expert, I would think so.
I think so.
Crown she does.
Yeah, she's good at crowns.
The irony.
So, I would go fruit gum.
Yeah, fruit gum.
I'm not keen on wine gums.
You're not.
I'd go fruit gum.
Honey.
Yeah, but I like the…
By sweet.
By bite.
Maybe wine gum in the fridge is okay, but fruit gum for me.
Can you write?
Just…
He's still playing with stuff.
You can't help it.
There's a button on here called…
There's probably a smoke screen.
Don't touch anything.
Bull horn.
No, don't press it.
That is very risky to press.
It's got a yellow button, which is…
Leave lily.
Leave alone.
I think the roof would blow off the building if you pressed that one.
It's also got a rear sunroof for Her Majesty here.
There's not a front sunroof for you, there's a rear sunroof for us.
Would that be bullet-proofed sunroof?
No.
No.
It's ironic that the brown people in the black just helps us tan, doesn't it, really?
Well, it's wonderful.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Right, the sweet thing is a bit nuanced for me.
I like all of the suggestions so far.
I particularly like Smarties in a cardboard pot,
because actually, as it gets hot, you do get a bit of taste of cardboard in a Smartie,
which might give you years.
I'm going to say, I would ordinarily have said she'd do something quite traditional.
I think she's barley sugar.
She'd like a hard-boiled sweet, but she'd like a soft option.
So she'd have said to the driver,
I'd like the hard sweet or I'd like the soft sweet.
Now, the hard sweet would be the barley sugar.
Yeah, in the tin.
In the tin, in the tin, yeah.
Father would call it, in a tin, obviously.
Yeah.
And I tried a sweet for the first time yesterday that someone left in my car.
So Merlin, again, gets his way into this bloody podcast.
Merlin left a bag of sweets in the glove box of this E39 that I bought,
as a cheeky surprise, and I found them yesterday,
because I was hungry, looking for sustenance.
They are revelationary, right?
He knows what they are.
It's an eclair, a toffee eclair,
but instead of having a chocolate centre, it's got a banana split centre.
What?
It's a banana split eclair.
That's a complicated sweet.
And I just know that Liz would have loved them.
She'd have said, she'd have said,
pass me one of those banana split eclairs and gas it,
because I want to watch the 120 at Hay Dock,
and I've got 50 quid riding on some old nag,
and get me back to the house, because my pot noodle needs making.
You can get a racing post in there very, very easily, probably 10.
Yeah, and on that note, we will conclude our time in a match with these...
Look at all these buttons.
Bentley and Morzane, because these two clowns in the front are playing with it.
No, right, just f***ing stop it.
OK, three times is 10 in this one.
Whatever you don't press the...
BUZZER
I knew you were going to do it.
LAUGHS
Why is that?
BUZZER
BUZZER
LAUGHS
Right, stop it.
Cooper.
That is the best horn ever.
LAUGHS
It actually says bullhorn, king horn.
It says horn.
I mean...
I'll sit in the driver's seat. You lurk in here.
So, here we are, sitting in the mythical eight-litre Bentley,
insured for £10 million.
Hey, guys, sorry, you are in my car.
Don't touch anything.
That's Frank Vallosa, the CEO of Bentley,
who's just reminded us that we shouldn't mess about.
That's slightly embarrassing.
So, yeah, don't press anything.
Don't press anything.
Thank you.
So, I think we'll do our quick two-car garage now.
We're going to choose two cars, two Bentley's,
that are for sale on car and classic.
I'll start with Chris Cooper.
I'm going to go for an Arnaj T6.
That's got to you today, didn't it?
It has completely got to me today, and they're really good value.
And I've just seen a couple of...
We'll put a link out.
I've seen two or three on car and classic, I really like.
And actually, an Asya.
Asya as well.
I just think that's the two-car garage to be all two-car garages.
Okay, Manish.
I'm going with Mr Cooper's Arnaj T.
That bit me so hard.
It's the most perfect car.
And the other thing, I do see myself in that silver Conti T,
and I think there's probably a beautiful Conti T on car and classic.
That's my brace.
Neil Clifford.
I cannot really resist the Supersport.
A Gen 1 Supersport in citrus.
Veron seats, name stereo.
I'm sure our fine one for sale on car and classics.
40 grand.
Then early Turbo R.
Green, green, right steering wheel.
Three spoke, not the big fat one.
15 grand all day long.
You've got everything.
Saloon, convertible, two-door coupe, W12.
Fantastic.
50 grand.
I'm going to go S2 Molina Saloon.
I love them.
For me, it's a bit of a sort of blue-collar R-type Conti.
It's got the shapes.
Can't afford R-type Conti, really, although that's what I'd really like.
You will do one day.
The R-type Conti is the car, isn't it?
And I have to say, lurking in the corner there is the second ever Mulsanne built.
The Mulsanne.
It's in a flat blue with a sort of darker linen hide with the monoblock wheel.
The Mulsanne from 2011 or 2010 is just a masterpiece.
And so I'm going to put you on the spot for some music before we end this slightly random podcast,
which we've enjoyed recording so much.
A piece of music that you can think of now.
I've not actually prepared for this.
Mr Cooper.
A lovely day by Bill Withers, because that's just what this has been.
Beat that, Neil Clifford.
I'm going British.
I'm going 90s.
Peak time of my life.
Therefore, Oasis.
Don't look back in anger.
Don't look back in anger.
Manage.
Bach.
English.
Sweet.
Number five in E minor.
The Sarabande Fourth Movement.
That's my day at Bentley.
It will always be.
How do you come out of that?
Where does it come from?
Obviously.
Now, I think the obvious pun that no one's reverted to is the fact that we sat in the Queen's car.
We did.
The band Queen, obviously, has to be mentioned.
So we're going to go for Don't Stop Me Now.
That's brilliant.
Good driving tune, that.
This is me and my merry band here at Crew Bentley.
We've had a fantastic day.
What a brand.
We love these people dearly.
Over and out from Crew.
Please tune in next week.
About this episode
Crew Bentley’s Chris Harris & Friends record from a 1953 Bentley R-Type Continental, then bounce through other Heritage Bentleys while debating fuel-scarcity advice. The group argues for calm, slower driving, prioritizing what matters, and doing it in an old car—plus practical tips like longer gears and lift-and-coast. They also play “where would you go for a month?” across Europe, LA, and the UK coast, then tour a Bentley once used by Queen Elizabeth II, joking about sweets, buttons, and royal-spec details before ending with car-nerd garage picks and music choices.
Original notes
Get your tickets to the Great British Jaguar Day at Bicester Motion below!
https://bicestermotion.com/calendar/great-british-jaguar-day
Download Car & Classic’s app today to see our 2CG’s, and our weekly pick of our favourite listings: https://candc.li/App_Download_
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Car Podcast with Chris Harris & Friends
Chris Harris
0:00
32:18