A DRAM WITHOUT DRAMA

The fabulously cultivated W12 engine that revitalised Bentley is retiring, at the same time as a very different type of Bentley arrives. Mark Tisshaw drives a Flying Spur up to Scotland for a first and last taste

"First, what do you think?" asks Kirsteen Campbell, creator of the new Bentley as I approach her with a few questions about her latest work.

This isn't after getting out of the Flying Spur Speed Edition 12 that I had spent the day driving - one of the very last W12-powered Bentleys to leave the Crewe factory line as the famous old engine fast approaches retirement - but after having a taste of the latest Bentley.

For this is no normal Bentley but a whisky, and Campbell is no normal Bentley engineer but a master whisky maker. Don't worry, you are still within the pages of Autocar and I will explain how we got here shortly.

Rather than Crewe, this story of the development of a new Bentley comes from the Macallan distillery in north-east Scotland, on the banks of the River Spey. It teamed up with the car maker to spend four years developing a whisky that's supposed to taste like a Bentley. Called Horizon, it has been through the longest development period of any Macallan whisky to date, and it's priced like a Bentley road car is among its peers: £40,000.

Horizon arrives at a time when a Bentley legend is about to say goodbye. Allowed to mature for a little over 20 years, the W12 engine should just be coming into its prime, but alas emissions regulations and the onslaught of electrification have done for another multicylinder great. It is now in its final throes, not available in a built-to-order Bentley, but you should be able to pick one up from stock. There's no end date on production yet, but it's a matter of weeks rather than months.