Amongst the quiet cobblestone streets, most beautiful townhouses, chicest little restaurants, and some of New York’s best dressed, the West Village only seemed like the obvious choice to debut the ultimate luxury vehicle. Held at the Stephen Weiss Gallery on Greenwich Street in March, Bentley introduced the new Flying Spur to a quaint and seriously intrigued audience of gapers.
A gleaming silver edition demanded our attention first, before we found ourselves seduced by a second beauty in a seriously sleek eggplant-purple. Once we overcame the initial awe factor and leaned in for a closer look, it was obvious that Bentley’s Flying Spur is chock full of exquisite features, leaving not a single detail of the car anything less than perfect. Allow us to elaborate: It not only takes 159 man-hours to build the Flying Spur from start to finish, but just to cut, sew, build, and trim a complete set of seats takes 30 hours. Twelve seamstresses work to produce the seats in the leather shop, having over 360 years of experience combined. Each leaf of wood veneer can be traced back to the unique tree it came from. Further, Bentley is the only coachbuilder to use mirror patterns when applying a veneer, placing four successive leaves end to end to make a symmetrical pattern across the fascia – a process known as book matching.
These are just some of the most impressive aesthetics. The mini champagne fridge nestled in the back between the seats is merely icing on an already pristine cake.
