And so to the journey. After a 200 miles night time ’prologue’ down to meet up with Mike, we managed 3 hours sleep before getting up in the car by 4am. The ‘short’ 90 mile drive to the tunnel turned into a longer 110 miles thanks to motorway closures and tortuous diversions through Kent.

Arriving at the terminal we dashed into the shop to get the all important (but useless) beam deflectors and a magnetic GB sticker to slap on the back of the car. We had a slight pang of doubt about the sticker given that it was only ‘tested to 130 mph’ but bought it anyway.
Turned out it was the least of our worries. Here’s a pub quiz question - ‘How much of the rear bodywork of a Bentley Continental GTC is made of steel?’ Answer - discovered with 5 minutes before train left - ‘None’. No matter how hard we tried the GB sign just slid onto the floor. With time running out we resorted to slapping it on the side of the car and thankfully this time it stuck.

The tunnel journey went smoothly and we emerged, having lost an hour, just before 8am, We were greeted by a friendly T-Mobile text welcoming us to France. A slow crawl out of Calais and then onto some clear road. Speeds gradually edged up as we became accustomed to the task in hand and soon the Bentley was thundering across the continent. 8.29 T Mobile welcomed us to Belgium, 10.50 to Netherlands and 11.02 to Germany. The Autobahns had finally been reached!

Now, some words of warning - not all autobahns are ‘derestricted’ (what!?) and many are just two lanes each way for quite long periods. Also, though some may have been built straight as an arrow for use as standby runways by the Luftwaffe, there are still plenty of bends which are pretty hairy taken at anything north of 100mph. Finally, and most importantly, on this day there were 80+ million Germans pootling about their country, every last one of them seemingly oblivious to my need for a completely clear road to achieve my quest of going at least 180mph.

Nevertheless, speeds began to gradually increase, with each gap in the traffic being met with a stronger and more prolonged burst on the accelerator. 120mph, 130mph, 140mph. It soon became noticeable that about 130mph is the fastest most folks drive and with good reason. Covering over 2 miles a minute means you have to scan the horizon for any indication that a car is going to pull out into your lane. Even when they don’t pull out, passing a car by a few feet travelling 50-60mph faster seems plenty fast enough, Danke schön!

But we were here on a mission, no matter how pointless, so we could not rest easy with the masses. First 150mph, then a clear long straight and 160 mph was reached. And how effortlessly it was reached! The sheer power of the Bentley meant the attainment of speed was a purely linear function of how long you had your accelerator foot flat down.

A Mercedes looked to pull out about 400 metres ahead. The Bentley’s brakes went on hard and we had our first reality check. If the Merc had pulled out, we would have ploughed straight through him. OK, a couple of flicks of the windscreen wipers to get rid of any clinging debris and we would have carried on our way, but it was worrying none the less.

Surely 180 mph and beyond seemed just a matter of time - a question of finding a clear enough long straight and we would be there.

But a by product of whistling along at 150+ mph is that you start running out of road. Soon we had only a couple of hundred miles to go and the traffic was beginning to get thicker. We could continue at 130mph but not much quicker. Then an hour out of Munich it began to rain steadily - our chance had gone for the day. We reduced speed to a seemingly sensible 110-120mph and made “BMW Welt” with an hour to spare before the tour.

The Bentley Continental GTC was booked for its 5 day odyssey - now all that remained was to work out where to go. Obvious targets would be the factories of Ferrari and Lamborghini in Northern Italy. Separated only 20 miles apart they could both be covered in a day. Mike set to work on arranging the necessary. On the way down to Italy we decided to visit a German manufacturer. Mercedes we’d done (I picked up an AMG with Mike from the factory three years ago - excellent trip but another story). So probably Porsche or BMW. Porsche couldn’t do a trip in the right timeframe so BMW it was. A quick visit to the BMW Munich web site and the trip was booked for 5.30pm on a Friday evening.

Channel tunnel tickets were booked for the early morning crossing arriving around 8am in Calais. So the Bentley would have 610 miles to cover in about 9 hours. An average of 68 mph with no stops. Hmmm. The roads better not be as clogged as those in the UK.

Mike returned with mixed news on the Italian front. Ferrari only do tours if you are a)Royalty or b)recommended / accompanied by a UK Ferrari dealer so that meant c) Joe Public can sling their hook and clear off. The only place plebs could visit at Ferrari was their museum ‘Galleria Ferrari’ which was about 1/2 mile from the Factory itself. That would have to do.

Lamborghini, on the other hand, had been happy to arrange a personal tour and were looking forward to meeting us on the Saturday afternoon.

So itinerary looking good, on to sorting out the Bentley for it’s trans european trip. First things were the lights. As Europe drives on the wrong side of the road it would be necessary to adjust the dipped beams so they angle the other way. Surely there would be a switch for this, after all it is called a Continental? Nope. OK, so would beam deflector stickers work? Not really - they don’t function at all well with halogen headlamps. OK, so how do we alter the beams? Bentley have to do it. Fine, it’ll be a bit of pain to bob the car into the showroom to have a guy quickly flick the things over but needs must and we don’t want to break European law now do we? We Brits leave that to the other 26 member states to do.

A quick phone call reveals that it’s not a quick procedure at all. Actually it involves taking off both front side panels of the car and removing the entire headlamp assembly. About 3 hours labour should do it, Oh and about 2 hours labour to switch them back when you come home (no, I don’t know why it takes less time - maybe they leave the side panels off until you come home). Suddenly I felt a lot more in common with our European brethren and decided just to wing it.

OH and forget bringing a spare bulb kit as well. Lights are not driver fixable - Bentley assistance would once more be required. By this point I’d learnt not to ask how much labour would be required…

OK - here’s the story. Spurred on by watching far too many Top Gear episodes I’ve always fancied having a long blast through Europe, preferably taking in as many miles of unrestricted Autobahn on the way trying to go as fast as possible.

However, I have never been able to come up with a plausible excuse or reason why to undertake such a voyage. I’d tried rehearsing my argument .. ME:“Darling, I’d like to take 5 days away from the family during busy term time, get up at 3am in the morning, drive 2600 miles as fast as possible and return a fit for nothing worn out rag”.WIFE:”That sounds fun dear, away you go and have a really nice time”…And then I’d wake up.

Then a small flash of inspiration came - I needed not only a reason for going but also a friend to go with. This elevated the whole enterprise from ‘wholesale desertion of family’ up to the level of ‘a pointless Boys trip’ - I might just be in with a chance then. Friend Mike was very much up for a trip which we decided would be to as many car factories as we could reasonably fit and a rush around the Stelvio pass (Top Gear’s no.1 road) for good measure. Added bonus - Mike’s a sales guy and can come up with a compelling argument on literally any mad cap scheme. He did and we were on!

The key choice would be what car to go in? First thing’s first - no speed limiter thank you very much. I’m not going to barrel down an autobahn just to hit a 155mph electronic wall. So any thought of high powered BMWs or Mercedes was jettisoned. Second thing - the car needs to have a sense of occasion. Porsches were therefore omitted at this point. Brilliant cars they maybe but they’re ten a penny over here and I’d guess Germany would be even worse.Third thing - no Italian hardware, unfortunately. If our destination was Italy then it seemed pretty pointless turning up at the Lamborghini factory and then losing your car in the car park amongst all the other Gallardos (“Now where did I put it?!”). No, the more we thought about it, the more we realised that we must ‘Fly the Flag’ and travel in one of Britain’s automotive finest.

So a Ford or Vauxhall then. Sorry, no..a Bentley or Aston Martin. Now give me an Aston Martin any day of the week to look at but to drive across a continent? My initial choice was the Aston Martin Vanquish - in British Racing Green. A fantastic brute of a machine capable of 200+ mph seemed just the ticket. However, a preliminary drive for a couple of days revealed a liking for dropping down into neutral at traffic lights and then point blank refusing to select first gear for at least a minute or two. If it can’t make it the 2 miles to Sainsburys without mishap what chance the 1125 miles to Sant Agata or Modena? Perhaps then the DB9 Volante (THINKS - that would be nice - a soft top in the Italian sun!) but hang on, wasn’t that the one where the sound system broke down listening to radio 4 in my front drive? Mike may be a salesman but even he couldn’t keep talking for the 10 hours a day we would be travelling - we had to have music!

So it came down to one - a bullet proof, flag waving, grand tourer capable of 195mph and the ability to have the top down if the sun came out. Our choice - The Bentley Continental GTC.

At last the day had arrived .. a shiny new Aston Martin DB9 Volante in the drive resplendent in James Bond metallic silver. Three days stretched ahead with a 500 mile round trip neatly in the middle to really get to know the car. How would it fare against the Bentley Continental GTC? We’d soon find out.

Like all other Astons I’ve had the pleasure to drive this one had a dodgy fuel filler release mechanism. Basically it doesn’t work. So it’s down to plan B and stick your finger through a neat little hole in the carpet lining on the side wall of the boot and tug on the little ring pull kindly provided by Aston. Up pops the fuel cap without fuss. The whole of the car industry sorted out the fuel cap mechanism about 50 years ago, including Ford who were at the helm when the DB9 was created. No matter - the Aston’s ring pull worked just fine. Some day all cars will be like this.

Looks wise the Aston is close to perfection. The soft top, to my mind, is slightly less sorted than the DB9 coupe but we’re splitting hairs here - they are both gorgeous. There would be no other make I would prefer to have in the front drive as a piece of automotive art.

A short drive shows that the car is refined with bags of power on tap. The 450 horse power, 6 litre V12 engine makes its presence heard under strong, effortless acceleration but is much more relaxed than the howls that might be emitted from a Ferrari, Lamborghini or indeed the baby Aston Martin V8. The Volante is built for munching distances rapidly and in breathtaking style. Roll on the 500 miles.

Unfortunately a minute after firing up, and before a wheel had turned, Radio 4 cut out and the Linn 260W sound system informed me ‘Amplifier Overheated’. This was code for ‘I’m not making any sounds from now on, so you’re on your own - in silence’. After mulling it over for quite a while I decided to report the fault and get another car. The 500 miles were covered flawlessly, in atrocious winter weather, in the Bentley Continental GTC. Round 1 to the Bentley but the Aston will return!

So when we started this site, we came up with the “football test” to measure the practicality of a supercar. Sure, we could have told you volume in litres of the bonnet/boot in each of these cars but who can actually picture how much stuff can fit in a 226 litre boot? We thought footballs would be a fun way to give an idea of the practicality of these cars.

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I’ll come clean straight away. I have never liked the look of Porsche’s 4×4 - not one little bit. A VW Touareg with the bonnet of a Porsche 911 grafted on is how it appears to me. A million miles from Porsche’s ‘true’ cars of the 911, Boxster and Cayman it’s launch in 2002 was a cynical attempt to exploit the Porsche badge and would never sell, I told myself.

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I admit that I’ve a soft spot for this car. Before I had a chance to drive cars like these I went for a trip round the local Bentley factory in Crewe and saw the first few Continental open tops roll off the production line on their way to owners around the world. The amount of work and craftsmanship put into each car was staggering and the resulting line of cars, sparkling in the immaculate factory left a big impression on me.

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Painted in a bright ‘Kermit the frog’ green, the Gallardo Spyder was always going to get attention. People would stop and point, cars would follow just to a get a closer look but nothing prepared Big Dave and I for the collective hysteria of the local Primary school playground as we rumbled past. Of all the cars I’ve been in this is THE one for getting noticed (if that’s your kind of thing). With only a few hundred cars at most hitting the UK’s roads each year it’s unlikely to ever reach the level of familiarity of other supercars so owners will have to get used to this level of attention for some time to come.

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This is not the full story on this car by any means but we have just posted the photos from the Lambo we had this week.

Totally bonkers car on the outside, everyone loved it.

I have to admit that reading through the car mags the Bentley Flying Spur, despite its tag as ‘the fastest production car on earth’ always, to my mind, looked a fairly uninspiring car. A Continental with a boot, and a badly shaped boot at that.

So, I have to admit I was prepared to be mildly disappointed when the £120k car swept into the drive. The wife took one look at it and said ‘It’s like a big Ford with an oversized boot’ before whizzing off on important ‘non boys toys’ business. Now she’s not read AutoCar from cover to cover at any point in her life so it was a bit of a damning confirmation of my preconceived view.

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The wife took one look at the newly delivered red Ferrari 430 Spyder gleaming in the drive and dismissed it. “It’s too red, too low and too noisy” she huffed. Dave and I stood aghast - surely that’s what this car is all about?! Still it meant an hour more in the car for us which was a good result.

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