In mechanical terms the Bentley’s most direct rival is Mercedes-AMG’s formidable 791bhp, V8-hybrid S63 E Performance. Though less powerful, if only by a whisker, and heavier, the Brit is still the quicker car off the mark, needing just 3.2sec to surge to 60mph versus 3.5sec for the Merc. Indeed, the four-door Bentley only trails its coupe sibling by a tenth, though the gap does grow as speed piles on, and by 150mph the Speed-flavoured Spur is a good few car lengths behind the Conti GT Speed. All three are monstrously quick.

In terms of character, electric assistance gives the Spur rather a profound duality. On one side there’s all-electric running, and that certainly suits this lavish limousine, even if the performance on offer is modest, and best deployed mainly in urban environments. Then, of course, there are those moments of full-throttle attack, when the bassy V8 makes itself fully known, and the meat of its torque delivery is faintly heralded by some electric torque-fill, which does, as you’d expect, give the Spur cleaner accelerator response that it has ever before known.

This is true whether you’re asking for everything this powertrain has or you just want to indugle in gentle roll-on shove. Certainly, the calibration of two power sources is more neatly managed here than in the AMG. At least, it is for acceleration. The renegerative element of the braking system gives the pedal a softer, less precise action that you’d expect from a performance brand like Bentley, and its predictive actions – slowing the car down automatically for traffic and roundabouts, etc – don’t chime with the thickset, linear, intuitive sense of control we’d expect from Crewe’s cars.