• Beautifully trimmed in the highest quality materials
• Lots of room front and rear
• Modern infotainment and first-class options

How is the quality and layout?

The interior of the Bentley Flying Spur is a masterclass. It’s hugely luxurious and offers a degree of personalisation that far surpasses the ordinary. So whether you like the classic touch of wood veneer and acres of leather or prefer more modern or sporting finishes including machined metal, alcantara or carbonfibre, you can specify a Flying Spur to suit you.

The degree to which individual elements and colours can be customised and combined can be quite breathtaking, and even when brighter hues – such as the orange of our most recent test car – are involved Bentley’s hand-crafting expertise manages to make everything seem incredible classy.

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That said, there are still a number of plastic buttons, particularly on the centre console, reminiscent of other VW Group products. But items that you touch on a regular basis – including the indicator and wiper stalks – are bespoke and delightfully tactile. And the famous Bentley ‘organ stop’ air vent controls are present and correct.

Infotainment and tech

The Flying Spur’s infotainment setup was already pretty impressive, but Bentley has upgraded this as part of the 2024 update. As well as revising the graphic interface, it now also features the ability to natively embed some applications – meaning they will work without the need for you to connect your phone. On the flipside, you can now also access some of the car’s secondary functions, including the seat controls, without completely exiting Apple CarPlay.

These are the kinds of well-resolved solutions anyone paying this sort of money for a car would rightfully expect. Similarly, the digital instrument display is clear, functional and highly customisable. Bentley has still retained physical buttons for climate control and other functions, which makes these easier to use without taking your eyes off the road, even if the centre console is rather festooned with buttons as a result.

In the back, a bespoke touchscreen remote control is available. This looks like a mere screen, but can be released from its mounting point to be hand held, if needs be. It’s pretty and a good talking point, but functionality is a little more limited than we expected.

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You could make the same argument about the optional Bentley Rotating Display, we supposed. Known affectionately as the Toblerone, this can hide the entire infotainment system in favour or three auxiliary analogue gauges or a continuation of the dashboard’s veneer panelling. It’s very Q-Branch in operation, and rather endearing.

Buyers can also pick from a choice of three hi-fi setups, starting with a 10-speaker 650-watt system as standard. The next level is a 1,500-watt, 16-speaker Bang & Olufsen install, while the flagship is a 2,200-watt Naim Audio system that’s bespoke to Bentley. We’ve found this to be a little lacking in drama at low levels, but higher volumes and some fine-tuning of the settings to personal taste should see it deliver a moving audio experience. Though at £7,210, it’s perhaps not as high-end as some customers’ home hi-fi where spending more than that on cables alone won’t be uncommon.

Comfort

• Seats are finely crafted from the best materials
• Lots of adjustment front and rear
• Optional Wellness seating for four

We’ve already covered that the Flying Spur offers passengers plenty of room, and that whether you sit in the front or rear you’ll be surrounded by luxury. But it’s worth reiterating that the rear seats offer almost as much adjustment as the fronts, and – as is often the case with this class of car – those sat behind the front passenger seat can move that forward to create more lounging space.

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Travelling in this Bentley can be tranquil and refined – there is little road noise and only a small amount of wind noise, which is easily drown out by the hi-fi. However, the sporting element of the Bentley driving experience can be brought to fore by changing the driving mode, which has a clear impact on the amount you get to hear of the engine, though even at its loudest this is a cultured beast rather than a hooligan. We’ll cover suspension comfort in the next section of this review.

A final note here for the optional Wellness seating. From the 2024 update this is now available to all four passengers. As well as regular heating, cooling and massaging functions, the Wellness seats include micro climate adjustments from within to regulate occupant temperature. Plus an automatic postural adjustment mode that tweaks the padding to reduce fatigue. It’s a little weird at first, but in our experience it really does seem to work. Well worth it.