Practicality and Boot Space

One of the reasons SUVs have become so popular is their ability to be practical. They offer far more room and a flexible boot space compared to a saloon, should you need to bring home that Chippendale chair home from the auction. The tailgate is electric of course, so you don’t have to risk your manicure on handles. The rear seats fold just like in any other big SUV to give a flat loadspace, but its not actually as big as rivals such as the Range Rover.

As you’d expect from such a massive car as the Bentayga, there is plenty of space for the occupants to lounge around in comfort though. The back seat passengers are just as pampered, reflecting the fact that many owners will choose to be driven rather than drive themselves. 

There’s a choice of four or five seat versions too, depending on how many people you want to treat to the Bentayga experience.

Technology 

The Bentayga offers pretty much anything you can think of in terms of tech, from night-vision to head-up displays and a whopper of a NAIM Audio stereo set-up. There are massaging seats and an app called ‘My Bentley’ that allows for various checks and warm-ups to be accomplished without leaving the safety of your duvet fort. LED head and tail lights also feature, and there’s a raft of other stuff. It’s too much to list here, and you can extend the list further by delving into the pricey options list. 

That said, the Bentayga Hybrid tries quite hard to keep up with the current tech-trends, but the feeling that it’s at least two generations behind is apparent. The centre screen is small and relatively low-resolution compared to some of the more savvy cars out there, and there’s a slight feeling that the new stuff is being lightly crammed into an old architecture.

Safety

Don’t expect the independent testers at EuroNCAP to be smashing the Bentayga into their walls anytime soon. Apart from being ruinously expensive, it would probably demolish the wall.

So the only way we can judge the safety status of the Bentayga is to look at the kit it has to keep you safe before and during an accident and to look at other cars which use the same structure as the Bentley. 

It is based closely on other Volkswagen Group cars such as the Audi Q7, which is a five-star NCAP car. It also has eight airbags and all of the usual technological helpers (lane-keep, various versions of ‘assist’, parking cameras) mean that the Bentayga is an extremely safe car to smash into things. As it would be, seeing as it’s a 2.6-tonne behemoth.