Goodbye Bentley W12: Last taste of one of Britain's best engines

Open gallery Opalite paint and silver calipers mark out Speed Edition 12 The Flying Spur Speed Edition 12 is one of 120 celebratory saloons "Gloriously overengineered, it’s a performance engine of a very different kind" says Tisshaw Whisky maker Campbell explains to Tisshaw the nuances of a £40k tipple Speed Edition 12 buyers get a model of its engine The Macallan Estate sits between Aberdeen and Inverness Close News by Mark Tisshaw 9 mins read 21 April 2024 Follow @mtisshaw "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. Related articles 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 multi-cylinder 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. Introduced in the brand’s relaunch under Volkswagen Group ownership at the turn of the century, the W12 is the foundation on which the success of modern Bentley has been built.  It has always been a performance engine of a very different kind, one in which the torque figure means much more than the power figure, and its size is to ensure it operates with as little stress and as much refinement as possible. Its configuration helps with packaging too, making it about a quarter shorter than an equivalent V12. Read our review Car reviewBentley Flying Spur SpeedThe end is near for the W12 engine, but not before appearing in Bentley's saloon one last timeRead our review Back to top Between us and a sample of the newest Bentley of a very different kind is a 400-mile farewell blast in one of the final W12 cars to experience and marvel at that torque and refinement for the last time. The Flying Spur Speed Edition 12 is one of 120 celebratory saloons that are notable for a few design features and for coming with a scale model of the 626bhp, 664lb ft W12 engine, perhaps to sit on your shelf alongside your bottle of Horizon. This package is also available on the Bentayga SUV and the Continental coupé and cabriolet, if you would prefer. I usually find myself pausing and taking a deep breath when I enter my destination into a sat-nav and see several hundred miles’ driving as my day’s work, but not so on this particular day. Instead, the feeling was that it would be just another effortless stretch of asphalt for a W12-powered Bentley to glide over and the sort of journey during which I could really relax into the car. The road trip itself was actually quite unremarkable, notable for its length rather than events en route. Indeed, the first 380 miles or so were largely on motorways and major A-roads stuffed full of speed cameras, with hardly a corner in sight. Back to top Starting in Nantwich, we weaved through various Cheshire rat runs at rush hour to hit the M6 just south of Manchester, and there we stayed as England gave way to Scotland and the M6 became the A74(M). Here’s one of the joys of getting up early to drive somewhere: before 10am, I had racked up 150 miles, with the W12 feeling like it was sitting just above tickover. It wasn’t stressed in the slightest, and neither was I. North of Edinburgh, I picked up the A9 before turning off onto Scotland’s Malt Whisky Trail, the A95, where the traditional epic Scottish scenery appeared, along with some corners, in the most glorious late-afternoon sunny glow. I had started this second stint in the passenger seat – something that always makes me nervous as someone who gets motion sickness when not driving, but that never felt on the agenda in