ALMOST like sitting something outside in the rain, a few days after the big Bentley arrived it seemed to shrink. Which was a good thing.

Longer and wider than a Mondeo and nearly twice the weight, this big car is almost more motoring statement than practical transportation device.

You could call it excess on wheels, if you're in curmudgeonly mood. Or a shining beacon of beautifully built Britishness (in Crewe), albeit with the ultimate decision makers sitting round a boardroom table in Germany.

Either way, it never fails to make an impression. Indeed, as the world's fastest means of moving four people around in a convertible car, it's never going to be a shrinking violet.

Simply starting the vast 6.0-litre engine and hearing all 12 cylinders begin their day's labour is like listening to an artillery bombardment from just over the nearby hills.

Put your foot down and the scenery reels itself towards you as though the fast forward button had stuck. Then you look at the speedometer and slow down before any lurking law officer scratches his head at the reading in front of him, and arrests you.

So it's just as well this travelling indulgence is impressive at saner speeds, where you have time to bathe in the finest car interior you might imagine, made just that little bit finer with an extra outlay of cash.

Before we get to the options' list, an explanation of the shrinking car syndrome mentioned at the beginning. Such is the firm but comfortable control exercised by the suspension, the grip from the largest wheels this side of a watermill, and pleasantly accurate steering, that this car seems to grow smaller with every passing mile.

Mind you, the vast hood that keeps the interior almost whisper quiet at speed, needs somewhere to hide when the sun shines. That means permanently robbing space the rear seats would otherwise occupy, leaving this gentle giant a minnow in the legroom department when it comes to carrying adults out back.

Space had also to be found for a fuel tank that would take the car a respectable distance between refills which, at the 17.5mpg recorded during this test, rolled up at rather regular intervals.

Pausing at the pumps at least gave my passenger time to enjoy the ambience of a machine more drawing room than mere conveyance, especially with the employment of optional extras.

For the Bentley is a temptress; eager in a refined way to persuade you that perfection can indeed be improved on. How about £3,295 for special blue Neptune paintwork? Handsome, and needing expensive extra hand finishing but looking like, well, blue paint.

Or how about dark tinted aluminium panels across the dash; delightfully different from the more obvious wood veneer and only another £3,660. Or impressive contrast stitching to the delicious leather trim, for £1,425?

I'd do without either for the extraordinary sounds produced from the optional (£5,475) Naim audio upgrade, the finest kit I've heard in any car. I'd also hope the posh boot carpet might be standard, and not another £405... ditto, adaptive cruise control for £2,045.

But if you can afford a new Bentley, you're already in a different spending league to most of us, where you can have what you want.

To those lucky few, I say enjoy yourselves choosing the precise Bentley you hanker after. We'll enjoy your car as it cruises by on the M25 or as you park in a deserted corner of the supermarket car park to keep that paint job away from humbler door edges.