Journey’s end

Then came the Rolls Royce Phantom (Spectator, 27 September). I expected to be impressed, to admire its engineering, to give credit to BMW for the care it’s taken of the marque and to continue feeling uneasy about its looks. What I did not expect was to like it. The simplicity and quality of the interior, the seamless gearbox with its uncomplicated park-neutral-drive-reverse selector, the virtually soundless power, the sense of regal occasion that comes from guiding it with that slim wheel and the incomparable bonnet view won me over entirely. So much so that what hitherto seemed brutalist automotive architecture now seems appropriately ducal.

Finally, it was impossible not to be awed by the 200mph Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed (Spectator, 22 November), a spacious four-door saloon that goes like no other without waking the passengers. For the real world, it’s the Bentley to have.

But that was a month ago. Since then Aston Martin has cut a third of its workforce, Rolls Royce has halted production and laid off staff, Bentley has cut shifts and new car sales overall are down 36.8 per cent (Land Rover are down 64 per cent, Mercedes 57 per cent). For how much longer will such automotive icons be produced in anything like their familiar incarnations? And now with Honda pulling out of F1, the sport that a century ago began as ‘motorism’ could be next.

The other respect in which this has not been a good motoring year is environmentally suspect and purely selfish, therefore important. I have failed to find myself a special set of wheels, a motoring bit on the side. I started the year determined on a Mark V1 or R-Type Bentley but squalid pecuniary considerations compelled a lowering of sights. I flirted with Bristols and Alvis TD21s, trying to persuade myself they were cheaper, cast sly glances at Mark 11 Jaguars (another would be my fourth), pursued in vain a second world war Humber military staff car, yearned for a fourth Daimler Majestic and brooded on a fifth old faithful, the resolutely unsexy P4 Rover. Now I fantasise about an early Range Rover owned by someone I know. No tax, not many left, an historic vehicle, one of the kings of the road, practicality and regality on the cheap. It wouldn’t fit the Christmas stocking but it could deliver a few — and there’ll be some empty ones this year. Good luck.