Like Iggy Pop, David Profumo and Editor Mark Hedges relax as they let motoring correspondent and fisherman extraordinaire Charles Rangeley-Wilson take the wheel on a memorable road–and angling–trip to the Peak District
AT 7.35am, our reels ’n’ wheels road trip begins when the Editor calls for me in a Prius, but, before long, the bar has been raised as we transfer into a magnificent Bentley Mulsanne Speed, which this magazine’s stylish motoring correspondent Charles Rangeley-Wilson has borrowed for our fishing visit to the Peak District.
We let young Charles take the helm as we test drive the electronic massage seat, the cocktail cabinet and the massive sound system of this car, reputedly the most powerful four-door vehicle in the cosmos, with a top speed nudging 190mph.
I urge the chauffeur to see what this baby can do, but he proceeds soberly within the speed limit. When it’s my turn, I’m too nervous to kick down and accelerate in case I suddenly find myself in Caithness.
Unlike those with petrol in their veins, I know nothing of carbon-ceramic disc brakes or naturally aspirated engines. Dwelling up a Highland glen, I’m more familiar with semi-agricultural Land Rover iterations, but I can assure you that this sublime creature bimbles along at an inexorable clip. I admire its twin rifled exhausts, snazzy alloy loud pedal and indicators that cluck like a broody Orpington. For an 18ft-long limo, however, the boot space is strangely small: it wouldn’t be much use taking your tups to market.
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