“This car was carved from a solid billet” is a phrase that’s often used to refer to something like the substantial and solid Bentley Continental GT.  But I have a difficult time with that metaphor.  That’s because most of the billets that I’ve ever seen have been on the floors of factories, large hunks of ferrous material that have been created through processes so hot and trying that even Hephaestus would need to knock off for a cold, delicious beverage.  Rather, I would describe this sinuously attractive coupe as being “carved from a solid piece of Tiffany jewelry,” except for the fact that I don’t think that Tiffany has anything that is 189-in. long or that can be pared down to 5,258 lb.  In addition to which Tiffany is an American brand, and because Bentley is a venerable British marquee (although now owned by Volkswagen), we’d have to go with another jewelry maker, such as, say Garrard (established 1735 and one of those firms that has long served Her Royal Majesty).  The Continental GT is both stately and strong, refined and regal.  It is not showy or ostentatious on the exterior; it is designed with such a subtlety that it makes you wonder why more cars aren’t as well styled.

On the inside, it is rather like I imagine one of the clubs that Bertie Wooster would visit (although Bertie’s club is the Drones, and with a 6.0-liter, twin-turbo W12—that’s right: think of two sixes rejoined at birth—that produces 552 hp; it does anything but drone).  It is a study in fine leather (you’ve not experienced a leather-wrapped steering wheel until you’ve seen the one in the Continental: it is truly leather on all surfaces); the seats seem as though they could serve as furniture in a lounge, and the seeming acres of fine wood veneers brings to mind a paneled room.  Although this is a contemporary vehicle, there is an extensive use of “mechanical” instrumentation.  Noted watchmaker Breitling not only provides the analog clock that’s in the center of the instrument panel, but it was also involved in designing the gauges.  There is an extensive use (e.g., on the surround of the “B”-topped shift knob, on thumbwheels) of knurled metal; this provides a tactile sense related to a finely made machine, something that would have been familiar to, say, Jules Verne: the Victorian excellence of engineering combined with 21^st century technology.  It would be churlish to point out that when the 14-way powered front seats are positioned for even comparatively diminutive people to be comfortable in there is absolutely no leg room in the back seat.  Which is a shame because the seats back there, including a center console for motoring comfort, would be a nice environment were it not for the snugness.

The Continental GT has a six-speed automatic and a continuous four-wheel-drive system; the wheels, incidentally, are 19 in. in diameter.  While it handles smartly, this is not the sort of thing that one would imagine thrashing about.  If one were, say, to be chased by, oh, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, it would perform handily, indeed.

But one would need to be judicious.  All of that opening talk about Garrard and the like is not idle metaphor.  The Continental GT is priced at $165,000.  But if you need to ask, you probably don’t need to know.

Assessment: If the crossword puzzle clue is “aspirational” and the word is seven letters, the answer is “Bentley.”