Shifting a car weighing 2.5 tons means a seriously big engine – which in turn ensures the GT Speed convertible is capable of just over 200mph.

However, despite the fabric roof, the GT Speed is remarkably quiet at high speed. It’s easy to forget you are in an open top car at times.

There is some noise from the C-pillars which fooled me into thinking I had left a window open but otherwise the Bentley purrs along in silence. Until you slip it into Sport mode, of course.

As you would expect, there is not a rattle, squeak or judder anywhere. British engineering at its best – and at a great price!

I can’t help thinking that incredible supercars like the Bentley GT Speed will soon be a distant memory. When I’m talking nonsense in a nursing home in 50 years time, staff will laugh at my memories of a ‘personal transportation device’ averaging 19mpg, costing £200k and sounding like a spaceship on lift off.

By then we will all be moved from A to B in pods. Driving a vehicle will be something from the history – what families go to watch at Bank Holiday Weekend track events around Silverstone and Brands Hatch.

The roar of a 12-cylinder engine will probably frighten children and remind grandad of when everybody owned a car, locked in a little house next to their home that was called a garage.

There isn’t an awful lot of time left to enjoy incredible cars like the GT Speed. The price puts it was beyond reach of the average man in the street but we should at least marvel at vehicles like this while we have them.

Times are changing, probably for the better but fans o the combustion engine need to enjoy it while they can…