First ride: Bentley Torcal

For a moment there I forgot. I was on board a big Bentley, the chap behind the wheel pressed a button and the unmistakable offbeat thrum of a crossplane V8 filled my ears. So far, so completely and utterly unsurprising. Bentley doesn’t actually make a car without a V8 just now, so if you’re in one, it’s a fair bet that’s what you’ll be hearing.

But I wasn’t in a V8, 6, 12 or any other kind of V or W Bentley. I was in a Torcal, a car noted for, among other things, not having any kind of engine under its gently sloping bonnet. It is, of course, Bentley’s first EV.

The sound is interesting, not least for the way in which it was created. What Bentley wanted to capture was the basso profundo voice of the 6.75-litre Mulsanne Turbo R, the car which really put Bentley back on the map after decades with its head barely peeping out of the top pocket of Rolls-Royce’s Savile Row suit. Bentley happens to still own one of these, so what you or I would do is stick a microphone up the pipe, ask Fred to give it a blip and use that. Which is precisely what Bentley did not do.