The Grand Tour

These modern-classic luxury super-GTs from Bentley, Aston Martin and Ferrari each uphold their brand values in subtly different ways

- SIMON HUCKNALL

In the early noughties, Bentley Motors was barely washing its face. A mere 1000 Arnage, Azure and Continental R models were creeping down Crewe's lines, only just enough to sustain the factory. Worse still, each model's production was labour-intensive, being largely handbuilt and typically costing around £200,000. The company used a pyramid graph internally to show the layers of global affordability for such cars: only the tiniest tip at its peak related to Bentley's buyers - and that was a real problem.

Its new parent, the Volkswagen Group, had secured the Bentley brand along with its Crewe site in 1998 (with BMW buying the Rolls-Royce name and migrating to a new factory near Goodwood) - and it had a plan. That came in the shape of an all-new car - one that was not only cheaper and easier to build, but which also upheld the all-important brand image while finding a far broader audience further down that pyramid graph. The Continental GT was to be Bentley's saviour.