Ahead lay three days in Normandy behind the wheel of the new Bentley Continental GTC Speed. A dream of a car to drive, it came in Dove Grey with blackware insignia, 22-inch dark-tint Speed wheels, black-painted carbon-ceramic brakes and a cabin trimmed in Cricketball leather with Beluga accents. A Naim audio system could have filled a concert hall. It is the modern Continental gran turismo, sine pari. With Normandy bright under summer sun, the journey recalled the mid-century pleasure of sweeping along coastal roads in a Bentley built for distance and grand arrivals.
The Bentley Continental comes with serious lineage. In 1952, Bentley built the R-Type Continental for drivers who kept the Routes Nationales in their heads and thought nothing of covering three hundred miles before lunch. Once clear of Calais, it could sit at the ton for hour after hour without complaint. The name promised the Continent itself: Calais to Cannes in one unbroken run, the needles steady and dinner waiting at the end.
In 1963, Ian Fleming gave one to James Bond. The R-Type appears early in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, on the road towards the fictional Royale-les-Eaux. Bond’s battleship-grey supercharged Continental, affectionately called the “locomotive”, was his one indulgence: a “bird and a bomb” of a car.
L-R: The Continental GTC Speed’s grand front end, with the Winged B and diamond-matrix grille against the Dove Grey paint. An important design change in the new Continental GT is its single headlamp, shaped by a slim horizontal eyebrow, crystal-cut detailing and 120 digitally controlled LEDs. The new 22-inch Speed wheel has a strongly directional, claw-like design inspired by Bentley’s image of a tiger at rest,
finished here in dark tint with polished accents.
The modern incarnation has sleeker curves and has traded the supercharger’s whine for the low, sonorous note of a twin-turbocharged V8, with hybrid assistance folded in. Paddle shifters respond before the thought is fully formed, while the technology allows the car to cruise so discreetly that the fuel gauge barely notices the miles disappearing.
Put the roof down between Trouville and Honfleur, select Sport, and car and scenery become one immersive experience. Adaptive suspension reads the tarmac; temperature-controlled massaging seats hold you through corners you had not intended to take quite so quickly. World domination would scarcely feel too ambitious from behind the Bentley’s hand-stitched steering wheel.
L-R: The hand-stitched steering wheel continues the Cricket Ball and Beluga colour scheme, framed by bright metal detailing and the dark single-finish Mulliner fascia specified for this car. The Bentley Continental GTC Speed cabin in Cricket Ball hide, finished with contrast piping, embroidered Winged B and Bentley’s new precision quilting with graduated perforations.
The road drops out of the Norman hills and suddenly Honfleur lies below, its harbour crowded with masts and slate roofs gleaming under a sky Boudin might have painted that morning. Above the town sits La Ferme Saint Siméon, reached by an uphill cobbled lane that seems to be there to discourage anything without four hundred horsepower’s worth of confidence, although you have to take it at a snail’s pace (the width is better suited to a Smart than to a Bentley).
The house began in 1825 as a farm inn, when the Toutain family opened its doors to travellers and, before long, painters. Mère Toutain extended credit to young men with more talent than money, and on such arrangements the Ferme built its reputation. Monet stayed here. So did Boudin, Corot and Courbet, all chasing the particular light where the Seine meets the Channel.
L-R: La Ferme Saint Siméon’s historic Norman buildings gather around leafy gardens on the heights of Honfleur, with the Seine estuary visible beyond. Beneath centuries-old roof timbers, this Junior Suite in the Pavillon (western side of the gardens) combines the character of a traditional Norman house with a generous sitting area and modern comfort.
Now run by the Boelen family, La Ferme has become the only five-star address in Normandy to hold two Michelin Keys. Its rooms, scattered across the farmhouse, the old Pressoir and the Pavilion, retain low beams, antique furniture and views over apple trees or rooftops tumbling towards the estuary. One still carries Monet’s name. The bathrooms have been allowed into the present century with grey-and-white marble, but the mood remains one of discreet old-world repose, modernised without losing its character. Much like the Bentley.
L-R: Restaurant La Boucane at La Ferme Saint Siméon, immortalised by Monet in his 1865 painting, A Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur. Included in the Michelin Guide, Les Impressionistes offers seasonal fine dining highlighting local Normandy produce.
Dinner is served at Les Impressionnistes, where local ingredients and seasonal produce are handled with the outmost respect to let the ingredients speak. Alternatively, La Boucane is a thatched, half-timbered bistro with a wood-fired oven, painted by Monet in A Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur (1865). Afterwards, there is a terrace from which to watch the tide turn over the estuary. It is easy to imagine Bond there with a glass of champagne and a backgammon wager.
L-R: Chef Matthieu Pouleur builds each plate around seasonal produce from local farmers and fishermen, alongside herbs and vegetables grown in the estate’s permaculture garden. The Spa Potager at La Ferme Saint Siméon is a wellness retreat with sauna, hammam abd outdoor jacuzzi, nestled among fruit trees and flower-filled borders.
The spa sits in a working permaculture garden among the same apple trees the Impressionists painted. Recently rebuilt around plants growing only steps from the treatment table, it sounds fashionable until one remembers that the house has practised some version of the idea for two centuries.
Pulling up in the Bentley, all heads turn. The valet is altogether too keen to take the car, and as he disappears towards the courtyard you wonder whether he intends to return it. There is a glass of claret waiting and the contentment of knowing the drive home need not be hurried.
The Continental GTC Speed costs £253,400 before the options list has done its work. Bond would have approved of the arithmetic. Spend now and use it to seek out places such as La Ferme Saint Siméon. The heirs can manage. Reluctantly, three days later, I turned the Bentley back towards London.
Author: Andrew Hildreth
Read more about La Ferme Saint Siméon and the Michelin Keys distinction, HERE. Bookings and reservations, HERE.
Find your Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible, HERE.
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