THERE may be more bicycles in Beijing than there are Bentleys but the British luxury car maker is acutely aware of the fortune China holds.

The Chinese love luxury - and Bentley does luxury very well.

And when it comes to cars what goes down best in China is a four door saloon, especially one with plenty of leg room in the rear.

So where more appropriate for Bentley to stage the debut drive of its new Flying Spur - the car it describes at the best luxury saloon in the world - than Beijing, capital of a nation where 2, 253 Bentleys were sold last year, just 200 short of the sales tally in America.

China is now Bentley's second biggest market behind America - the UK ranks third with 1,104 sales in 2012 - and across the world demand is booming, up 22 per cent year on year to 8,510 cars.

The Flying Spur is Bentley at its best - prestigious, powerful and exclusively posh.

In fact it is the most powerful four door saloon Bentley has ever made with 616bhp coming from a hugely potent 12-cylinder, six-litre engine complete with two turbos.

The performance is awesome with a 200mph top speed and a 0 to 60 time of 4.3 seconds, and that's from a car which is 17ft 4ins long and weighs the best part of three tonnes.

Yet that is lighter than its predecessor by 50 kilos, an achievement which has improved fuel economy by 13.5 per cent to enable Bentley to claim 19.2mpg on average with CO2 emissions of 343g/km.

Other changes include a new damping and steering set up to give the car more feel and balance but not at the expense of Bentley's legendary ride refinement.

If anything the Flying Spur is significantly quieter inside than before and the car has moved into a niche of its own, dropping the Continental from its name and styled to be individual.

It carries itself with grace but with an edge of venom while inside classic Bentley touches and handcrafted finishes come together with touchscreen technology and a Breitling timepiece.

A multi-media system driven by a 64-gig hard drive allows wi-fi connectivity on the move and in the rear seats a pop out remote control can be used to operate most of the car's facilities, ranging from the climate control to the individual DVD players which can be viewed from screens fitted into the back of the headrests above drop down veneered tables.

On the W12 Mulliner model we drove there was even a sizeable refrigerator hidden away behind the back seat armrest.

Our drive from the traffic mayhem of downtown Beijing to the Great Wall of China at Jinshanling gave us almost 300 miles to evaluate the new Flying Spur and in every aspect its dynamics impress. So does the comfort, especially in the rear where space is immense.

Power is on demand, smooth on a gentle throttle but able to spit like fire if required.

The W12 engine, sourced from parent group VW, is mated to an eight-speed ZF auto box which can be switched into sport mode or operated manually from paddle shifters mounted to the steering column.

A preference would be for the paddles to be attached to the wheel boss itself to make the drive even more engaging and although the suspension settings can be switched from comfort to a firmer sport setting the operation has to be done from the touchscreen and not simply from a single push of a button.

At high speed the suspension drops automatically was the Flying Spur passes 120 and 150mph to give ground hugging aerodynamics and all-wheel-drive is there constantly to enhance grip. In normal configuration the car is weighted 40/60 front to rear.

With a power band stretching from 2,000 to 5,500 revs there little the Flying Spur cannot champion, and that was on road surfaces ranging from supreme to almost agricultural.

On our drive average fuel consumption showed just shy of 17mpg which given the conditions was impressive for such a motor.

Rivals include the likes of the Mercedes S600, the Rolls-Royce Ghost and Aston Martin's Rapide and Bentley is pricing the Flying Spur from £140,900 for the W12 to £150,220 for the exceptionally well appointed Mulliner.

In China that equates to almost £400,000 after local taxation yet of the 2,100 of the previous generation Spurs sold last year 1,600 went to the Chinese market.

Bentley now has more dealers in China than it does in Britain and the demand is being driven by a breed of customer who can be sated only by such motoring finesse. In the new Flying Spur they have a car unparalleled.