The burly British bruiser making eyes at the dainty Italian princess.
The silver car is a Bentley Continental GT, the ultimate long distance cruiser. It packs a V8 twin-turbo’d lump that churns out over 500 horsepower, is good for 0-60mph in 4 seconds and will transport you 500 miles in leatherly comfort surrounded by a pretty good facsimile of a decent gentleman’s club. Not unlike a Jag, it exudes the whiff of a rotter’s car.
If I could afford to run one (I can’t), I would buy one and live with climate guilt (it pushes out a lot of carbon dioxides, and isn’t polar bear friendly).
The tiny blue car is an early 1960s Fiat 500, known commonly as the Quinquecento. There is literally nothing to this car bar a few strips of (very) thin Italian steel, a couple of (very) poorly upholstered seats and a (very) tiny engine (a 479cc two stroke engine pushing out 13 horsepowers). A puppy could out-pull it in a tug-of-war. But it still carries the air of la dolce vita.
I don’t want one - old secondhand cars are better seen than owned. But it does have allure, the hint of a romantic week in Tuscany’s mountainous hinterlands.
Of course, the romance that they exude is foreign in modern electric cars. (The exception is the BMW i3, still cute after nearly 20 years.)
Truth be told, neither Bentley nor Fiat is equipped to deal with the future of motoring. They are both items of nostalgia, dinosaurs waiting for the meteorite.
None-the-less, the Fiat is possibly the most charming car ever made, more delightful than that puppy. The Bentley is the epitome of British debonaire style (tho it is made by the Germans these days - VW own the brand).
So the question is - are they saying ‘Hullo’? or ‘Goodbye’?
*One of three articles celebrating Italian Cars. Click the links below to read the other two parts of the ‘Italian Car’ CAC article series:
Superveloce, by Peter Grimsadale (pub. Simon and Schuster)
Alfa Romeo: still the car to be seen in
