► Living with a Conti GT Convertible V8
► Steve Moody’s long-term test review
► After half a year, the verdict is in
Month 7 living with a Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible: the end of our long-term test
I had to go to B&Q the other day. Nobody smiled at me, nobody made a polite comment. I bought some lightbulbs, and went home. The trip was shocking for just how uneventful and unmemorable it was. It was the day after the Bentley went back to Crewe, and it was hard not to feel bereft. B-Day +1.
Because the thing that really struck me about driving the Continental was not the epic drives, barrelling through big scenery, it was the little trips, the daily grind made remarkable. Not in the way it might be if you’re in a supercar, all fanfare and stress, but instead relaxing and sumptuous, a feeling that you are floating through a world of chaos and clutter on a pillowy ermine cloud, schussed along on zephyr winds of Chanel No5.
We ran it over the winter, to see whether a £200k convertible was even remotely viable during a time when it might seem utterly inappropriate, and the GT just cruised it thanks to the quality of the engineering. Sometimes it was only the noise bouncing off roadside walls that reminded you it was a soft top. It refused to freeze when other cars were ice bound, the voluminous engine, deep-pile carpets and thick leather storing their warmth like a down-filled quilt. It always started without hesitation. The roof always shut tight like a bank vault door.
Every now and again, somebody would say it’s just an Audi A8 or VW Touareg in a posh suit. If I took them out for a drive it was guaranteed to change their mind. The all-wheel drive meant that when that glorious V8, complete with its Spitfire-ish burr, invited the car to extreme forward motion it always delivered with minimal fuss, and the controls offered weight and security rather than flightiness.
The only time it might become ruffled was if you asked a lot of it mid-bend. But take an old-fashioned slow-in, fast-out approach and it would corner with aplomb. The vast torque available at almost any point in any gear meant you could make surprisingly efficient time on any journey without driving like a complete idiot.
The cabin was subjected to family life, and Moody family life at that, which means grubby kids spilling Happy Meal chips as they go, scuffing seat backs with their grotty trainers. Yet all it took was a quick wipe and it was back to the perfection of a New Bond Street boutique. Of the thousands of hand stitches throughout the car, not one snagged or came loose, and the leather showed no signs of losing its velvety texture or age-based wrinkling.
But there are downsides. It’s a ridiculous vehicle to park, especially as the reversing camera sits proud and was always covered in dirt, and in any case most spaces are designed for much smaller cars, many of them driven by people with scant regard for the cost of repairing a Bentley. I just got used to not bothering. You can get most things you need on the internet these days anyway.
Then there’s the cost of fuel. For the fortunate individual who doesn’t baulk at spending 200 grand on a convertible, I suppose 22 miles for every gallon of super unleaded isn’t a problem. For a poor journo such as myself, doing more than 1000 miles a month, the costs were eye-watering, totalling almost £2500 during our time together. But I resolved from the very start that given the choice of running this glorious machine for six months or worrying about the cost, I’d tell the latter to get stuffed and embrace fully the former.
Ultimately, there is no logical case to be made for owning a car such as this. You can do the ‘911 plus E-Class estate plus MX-5 for the same money’ fruit machine game and the Conti won’t look good. But to live with one day-in, day-out, whatever the weather, whatever the road, is to glimpse what it must be like to live in the pantheon of motoring royalty. It was good while it lasted.
We’ve lived with the latest Conti too: our 2020 Bentley Continental GT long-term test
By Steve Moody
Running costs: Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible
Cost new £196,575 (including £31,775 of options)
Dealer sale price £139,512
Private sale price £131,862
Part-exchange price £127,152
Cost per mile 27.2p
Cost per mile including depreciation £9.26
Logbook: Bentley Continental GT V8 S convertible
Engine 3993cc 32v twin-turbo V8, 521bhp @ 6000rpm, 502lb ft @ 1700rpm
Gearbox 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Stats 4.3sec 0-62mph, 192mph, 258g/km CO2
Price £164,800
As tested £196,575
Miles this month 1498
Total 7732
Our mpg 21.7
Official mpg 26.7
Fuel this month £383.38
Extra costs None
Month 6 living with a Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible: a Bentley parade at Silverstone Blancpain race series
If you’re a Bentley owner, you’ve no doubt got several lavishly appointed houses, a selection of flunkeys and some quite exquisite shoes. You probably smell lovely too. What more could you want from life? Experiences, that’s what, preferably of the money-can’t-buy type… except these days money can buy pretty much any experience you like, such as becoming President or being a spaceman. Or both.
For a lot of money you can pick from a variety of Bentley owner experiences, which include taking your car for a spin to Le Mans or borrowing one of Bentley’s cars and driving it across Bolivia.
This is way beyond my means, but in full journalistic deep-dive mode I get myself invited to spend time with the Bentley M-Sport racing team in the Blancpain series race at Silverstone. This includes the opportunity to join the pre-race Bentley parade around the GP circuit.
I go to the Bentley pop-up tent at the circuit entrance and pick up the itinerary, a fistful of passes and some lanyards. When offered toiletries, free hand-made chocolate and some sort of artisan gin it seems churlish not to take them. The full Bentley owner experience, of course.
A British Racing Drivers’ Club sticker allows the Bentley to pass unhindered into the club’s parking enclosure, way beyond the public car park and next to the old pits. It’s a bit of a bunfight for parking spaces, with Bentleys of various types clogging the place up, but also a lot of other cars worth a gawp, with a Ferrari F12 tdf and Jaguar D-Type standing out.
Once your electronic tags have got you through the hallowed gates of the BRDC and into their clubhouse you can sign up for a pit walk, garage tour, driver briefing and shuttle bus round the circuit. But more importantly, there’s a Sunday roast to be had. I scoff it down, although some of the other guests seem less impressed. When you have peacock pancakes for breakfast, your palate is probably more refined.
While I’m picking at my undercooked roasties, the team give their thoughts on the day’s racing. The performance-balancing use of weights and restrictors has made the cars extremely tightly bunched, with split seconds separating a fabulous field of Lamborghini Huracans, Mercedes-AMG GTs, McLaren 650s and Nissan GT-Rs as well as the Bentleys. It’s all in the pitstops, tyre wear, brilliant driving and the luck of the draw with the Safety Car, it seems.
Then it’s time to get in the car for the pre-race parade. Last-gen Contis wearing stickers of many European jaunts, a smattering of Bentaygas, a beautiful brand new jet-black Continental Supersports and even a Mulsanne begin to queue. I join at the back, not wanting to get in the way of the real owners.
I know that the Continental is not entirely suited to track driving, but with the sun out, the roof down and the exhaust in fully cackling, roaring, booming Sports mode, it really is a joy. Foot flat to the floor and that vast car bolting forward, a thought strikes me: I hardly ever drive at full chat. I normally just tootle about, listening to the perfect Naim sound system, the engine bubbling away in the background. But I should do more of this, because at the top end of the revs it is has a much harder edged, more metallic roar.
By the second lap CAR’s Bentley is starting to prove just how much work it has to do. Each corner sees the tyres squealing, even under moderate load, while the vast brakes are already starting to fade. Slowing nearly three tonnes from three figures is quite a job.
The race itself is a cracker. The Bentleys are pretty competitive, with the second car of Vincent Abril, Andy Soucek and Maxime Soulet leaping into contention from outside the top 20 during the first round of pitstops. In the second stop, it looks like they might challenge for a win, and there’s a burble of excitement in the garage, but their pace towards the end just isn’t quite there, while at the front a Huracan and AMG GT run nose to tail for nearly an hour, finishing only 0.3 seconds apart.
Fifth is a good result for Bentley Number Eight. We’re a good team, us Bentley people, I reflect, munching on my hand-made chocolates on my way home (gin safely undrunk, I should add). What next? Hmm, that Bolivian experience sounds like fun…
By Steve Moody
Month 5 with our Conti GT: 5 things you learn as a Bentley owner
Life changes in some quite unexpected ways when you drive a Bentley Continental every day.
1) Women check me out
In the Bentley I have become the Mr Darcy of Middle England. Two theories:
1) Boden catalogue-a-likes are just really interested in the Conti range, and are peering at it wondering if it’s the standard convertible or the S
2) They’re wondering who that handsome devil (well, he’ll do) is, and if he has a summer home in Tuscany, a Black Amex and a personal chef.
Women not being as shallow as men, I believe it to be number 1…
2) The doors are heavier than my last car
I don’t mean the doors on the Renault Zoe, I mean the whole thing. My son, age six, can’t shut them. And it’s not like you have to slam them, just get them close, and motors do the rest. They are also long. When both doors are fully open, the Bentley’s span is 4.37 metres. It takes me an eternity to find a space in a car park.
3) You drive very slowly
This is nothing to do with the Bentley’s ability to evaporate 80 litres of premium unleaded. Two things contribute. You are mindful of being on display, so driving like a cock will get you noticed, and remembered. Then, it is a such a sumptuous drive that there’s no need to race about trying to trim half a second from the route to work. In a Bentley, the world was made to enjoy – you take the time to soak it in.
4) I love the sun visors
When somebody new gets in the Bentley – nobody, I hasten to add, drawn by my Darcy-like allure – I like to point them in the direction of the sun visors. They are encased in two slabs of leather so thick they must have come from a cow whose hide was thicker than Piers Morgan’s, and considerably better bred too, while the mirror is so sheer and pristine it wouldn’t look out of place in a Versailles hall. True luxury is in the attention to detail.
5) It’s a bugger to wash
Four driven wheels, each a foot wide, and me living in the countryside means a lot of mud is thrown up over the vast metal acreage. You can’t use the automatic car wash because of the roof. Fifteen minutes with the jetwash just about gets it wet, 20 gets it shiny, but then it needs hours of buffing to reach showroom standard.
By Steve Moody
Logbook: Bentley Continental GT V8 S Converible
Engine 3993cc 32v twin turbo V8, 521bhp @ 6000rpm, 502lb ft @ 1700rpm
Gearbox 8-speed auto, four-wheel drive
Stats 4.3sec 0-62mph, 192mph, 258g/km CO2
Price £164,800
As tested £196,575
Miles this month 1203 Total 5340
Our mpg 20.7 Official mpg 25.4
Fuel this month £322.04 Extra costs £0
Month 4 running a Bentley soft-top: roof down no matter what
Every time the sun is out my kids insist on poking the button to lower the roof, even when it’s five degrees with a stiff north-easterly.
They’re fine, because the V8 creates so much heat the cabin has its own tropical micro-climate and they’re little and sit in a fug of warmth, but I reckon I look like a smug arse, rubbing people’s noses in my imaginary richness.
Then they make me play their bloody music too, and the remarkable Naim sound system is so epically powerful it turns the Conti into a portable Little Mix concert. Which because there’s no roof, everyone can hear.
So we turn up at the school gates looking and sounding ridiculous, me with an ice cream headache, while mums look on askance at the gauche nouveaus. Secretly, I’m bloody loving it.
By Steve Moody
Logbook: Bentley Continental GT V8 S Converible
Engine 3993cc 32v twin turbo V8, 521bhp @ 6000rpm, 502lb ft @ 1700rpm
Gearbox 8-speed auto, four-wheel drive
Stats 4.3sec 0-62mph, 192mph, 258g/km CO2
Price £164,800
As tested £196,575
Miles this month 1982
Total miles 3449
Our mpg 21.8
Official mpg 26.7
Fuel this month £495.82
Extra costs £0
Month 3 running a Bentley soft-top: a 1562-mile ski trip!
The Geneva motor show is a highly important and influential event in the automotive calendar, because it allows highly important and influential executives and highly important and influential journalists to go on a free skiing holiday.
Naturally, with the clue in the last sentence being ‘highly important and influential’, this does not include me.
However, all is not lost, because one of the reasons for running the Bentley for six months over the winter is to discover if, as a convertible, it is as adept in the freezing weather of Northern Europe as it is being drenched in Californian sun. So I feel that it is only fair to put it to a proper test and have my own little skiing break post-show, obviously without the heli-skiing, free bar and personal butler/masseur all those HIIs would no doubt be enjoying.
Of course, there is also the element in this that I will be driving the £200k GT V8 S to Lausanne, thence Geneva, on to Chamonix and back, so staunch the bleeding from your heart for me, because this rigorous test programme is no particular hardship.
In order to prepare for the journey, the Benters needs winter tyres, which means visiting a dealer. Craig Glew from Bentley Leicester rings me up and says that they will come and pick the car up if I want and deliver it back to me, but I only live 30 miles away and I fancy a bit of a poke about, so selflessly offer to bring it in myself.
As it’s booked in at noon, he then emails to ask what I’d like for lunch. Apparently I can have anything I want while I wait. That’s the level of service you get from a Bentley dealer. I do think about demanding beef Wellington couriered up from Rules – London’s oldest restaurant, and one of its swankiest – or perhaps some organic dust from that place in Norway with all the Michelin stars.
Instead I opt for a cheese toastie from the local sandwich shop, and very nice it is too, while sitting in a big leather armchair reading the paper, drinking tea out of a Bentley mug and feeling pretty smug.
Car suitably shod, I discover the change to winter tyres utterly ruins the ride. The winters are run at a much higher pressure (they can be run softer but you’d lose some of the handling accuracy) and even with the suspension in Comfort the ride is still brittle and stresses the chassis, creating way more twist and shake than you ever get with the standard Pirelli P Zeros. Nevertheless, it’s a necessary evil for the run to the Alps, and I can always get the summer tyres refitted fairly soon, and get another toastie out of it in the process.
To get to my hotel in Lausanne at a reasonable hour requires a 4:30am start and a race to the tunnel before the Monday morning traffic chaos kicks off, and if there is a more soothing way to start a long journey than having eight cylinders gently throbbing away I’ve yet to find it, and that big engine warms up in no time, making it as cosy a car as there can be.
Bentley Continental GT cars for sale
It is
immediately apparent that this isn’t going to be the most arduous journey ever undertaken. Even on the winter tyres the Bentley tracks fairly true. The softer blocks of tread are clearly pressed hard into the surface by the two-plus tonnes and so even when warm there’s not much squirm at high speed.
Monday mornings in France are less chaotic than those in the south east of England, and after tiptoeing on and off the Eurotunnel, I set the cruise control to 130km/h and I’m nearly at Reims before the Archers Omnibus has finished. The Continental has such easy momentum, requiring very little input from behind the wheel to guide it in the right direction.
The dated sat-nav is less easygoing. It’s incredibly clunky and not entirely logical. For a start I am sure it is receiving traffic information from a particularly congested day in 2009 and so it constantly warns of phantom jams and impending closures, while it plots a path that doesn’t always adhere to a policy of getting you to the location as soon as possible.
Looking at the big hockey stick-shaped route south of Geneva and back up along the lake, I check the journey on my iPhone and both Apple and Google concur that a much earlier left turn will lop about 70 miles and an hour off the journey.
At this point, it doesn’t feel like much of a magical jaunt into a winter wonderland, because the roof remains resolutely up and the rain is resolutely coming down, and the only thing to see is spray and mist and miserable, barren fields.
This changes as I turn off the motorway near Poligny and 4 into the Franche Comte and Jura National Park, because the rain turns to sleet, the fields are replaced by oppressive, logged forestry, the roads a combination of gravel, mud and lorries, and there is a pervasive stench of cow shit. What a depressing place this is – a rare corner of France not worth visiting. I gun the Bentley as fast as the sheet-water and sleet will allow and breathe a sigh of relief as I hit the rush hour queues of Lausanne 90 minutes later.
Seven hours from Calais, and the Continental has barely broken sweat. It has, however, used an impressive amount of fuel, although the 80-litre tank means the astronomical rate of consumption is hidden by the need to only stop once. I decide to leave the receipts and maths for another day, possibly after going to the show and looking at an electric Bentley.
Electric Bentley dutifully gawped at, I throw the best part of another 100 euros into the tank and head for Chamonix, where the sky is looking pleasingly light and bright. As we climb into the valley, the three-feet-high banks of snow at the roadside
signal that it’s a good time to be there. Finally, after nearly 15 hours of driving I can get the roof down.
The temperature is exactly zero, but there’s no wind, and with a daft-looking bobble hat and a coat the cabin of the Continental is a perfectly lovely place to be. Except that I’m feeling incredibly self-conscious. The Chamonix valley and its attendant ski resorts are places for real skiers – gnarly types who sleep in camper vans, have big beards and throw themselves off mountain tops. And that’s just the women. Prancing around in a drop-top Bentley, it feels like I belong more in Courcheval or St Moritz among the poseurs wearing leopardskin all-in-one ski-suits.
Then some European chap appears from out of the trees and makes a horn sign with his fingers and says it’s a cool car, dude, and turn the music up loud, man, or something like that. It’s hard to say – his beard has ice all over it, but I’m sufficiently flattered to feel more confident and begin to enjoy the way the Bentley’s winter tyres and four-wheel drive can power it up any snowy slope or track.
Just one thing to be careful of, though: while it has tremendous, sticky traction in the snow, a car of this vast size takes some stopping and the ABS has to take over if you’re too eager on the brakes. And you have to be careful where you stop as well, because tree branches kept hurling snowballs into the cabin, and we take more than one squarely on the head.
But with the heater on full, the neck warmer blowing hot air and the seat set to nuclear meltdown level three it’s lovely in the cabin. Out onto the road to Argentieres further up the valley, the Continental is glorious, that V8 blasting out through the trees as we cut though the sharp, icy air.
I’ve come to do some skiing, but frankly, this is more fun. In fact, this is just as enjoyable as cruising about in warm sunshine, and when I finally do get some skis on it’s hard not to dwell on the impressive range of skills the Continental has.
You can get more exotic, more agile, faster, louder cars at this eye-popping price, but the Bentley is one of the very few that you know will blast across endless swathes of motorway, shovel its way through cow dung and gravel and then reveal itself in all its elegant glory when the time comes.
What you’ll need: Bentley ski trip essentials
- A big pile of cash – We did 1582 miles, at an average of 21.8mpg. Or just under £400 in fuel.
- One toastie – Pre-trip carb loading, thanks to Bentley Leicester.
- Winter tyres – Dunlop SP Winter Sports make the 4wd Conti viable in the snow.
- European touring pack – A Bentley briefcase replete with emergency port, a duelling pistol and letter of introduction from the Foreign Office. Or possibly just some hi-viz tabards and spare bulbs.
- Heated seats – Number three setting is only for those with rings formed in the fiery depths of Mordor.
- Neck warmer – Ensures you can have the windows fully down for more elegant lines, and dries your neck out when you’ve been hit by a snowball.
- Spare sat nav – Always best to have a back-up, as the ageing Bentley one thinks the Austro-Hungarian empire is still an entity.
By Steve Moody
Logbook: Bentley Continental GT V8 S Converible
Engine 3993cc 32v twin turbo V8, 521bhp @ 6000rpm, 502lb ft @ 1700rpm
Gearbox 8-speed auto, four-wheel drive
Stats 4.3sec 0-62mph, 192mph, 258g/km CO2
Price £164,800
As tested £196,575
Miles this month 1982
Total miles 3449
Our mpg 21.8
Official mpg 26.7
Fuel this month £495.82
Extra costs £0
Month 2 running a Bentley soft-top: how does it cope in winter?
Our Bentley is too posh to frost. If it’s been driven the day before, the vast engine, thick leather and deep carpets act like a giant heat sink, while the double-glazed windows and three-layer roof barely release any warmth overnight.
Also, the seats switched to level three are so hot it’s like being poked on the arse by the devil’s trident.
So on a freezing morning the soft-top GTC is ready to go when other cars are ice-bound.
By Steve Moody
Month 1 running a Bentley Continental GT V8 S Converible: the introduction
So the other day I was driving my Bentley, roof down in beautiful sunshine, to my French A-Level exam, when I realised I had done absolutely no revision for it, and in fact couldn’t speak a word of French. And I was completely naked. I stopped at some traffic lights, whereupon a large pink elephant called Maurice, wearing a bowler hat and with a large daisy poked in the end of his trunk, asked for a lift to Didsbury.
And then I woke up. It had all been a very vivid, very surreal dream. I got up, stretched and looked out the window. The Bentley was still there… Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce, with a healthy dollop of wide-eyed, pinch-myself incredulity (and a little nervousness) I shall be running a Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible for six months. Bonkers.
Now, you might wonder how such an insignificant footnote in the estimable pantheon of CAR writers should be spending half a year ensconced in the bountiful embrace of Crewe’s finest? I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure myself, other than most journalists working for the magazine need a car that can actually transport their muddy families, rubbish, smelly dogs and baggage about because they are committed, selfless individuals.
Me, I’ll happily tell those nearest and dearest who don’t fit that they’re taking the bus, or leave them standing on the pavement in their muddy shoes if need be. In fact, I’m pondering going the whole hog with the multi-millionaire lifestyle and binning the lot of them for six months, renting a pad somewhere swanky and getting myself one of those Eastern European brides called Melania I’ve seen on the telly.
This will be an interesting challenge for my brain, trying to sponge away the vast ponds of serotonin that form from tooling about in this machine, and exercising some journalistic impartiality, restraint and gimlet-eyed critical faculties.
For Bentley claims that the drop-top Conti is a car you can use every day, the luxury boulevardier that happily queues on the commute in a miserably misty, frosty British winter. We’re going to see if the triple-layer roof, VW Group electronics, obsessive, very personal, attention to build quality, winter tyres and neck heater will prove this to be true.
The V8 S is for me the sweetest spot in the Continental range, offering a twin-turbo engine with a dash more power (521bhp versus 497) than the standard one, and marginally better handling too thanks to 10mm lowered suspension, stiffer springs and roll bar, more precise steering and less strict traction control. The big V8 has way more charisma than the hushed, more expensive W12. Should you want to buy a bog standard one off the shelf, it would cost you £164,800.
Our car has £31,775 worth of options. I should point out we did not spec this car – and, frankly, wouldn’t have had the nerve to go this far. It’s one thing to tick the box for leather and a DAB radio on your Kia and add a few hundred quid to the price, but I would have found it very challenging to absolutely insist I must have hand cross-stitching and stick £2815 on the bill, or £425 for a small spectacle case.
Fortunately then, nice people at Bentley – more at home with such preposterous figures – specified it for us, resulting in a car that tops out at £196,575, although I had one concern with this approach in that we might end up with a car in a lurid colour and eccentric trim that looked like I’d made millions conning people with my ‘Nigerian prince’ email scam. But the sight of this car rolling onto my drive in Storm Grey paint and dark beluga leather on 21-inch black limited-edition wheels allayed that worry. It’s a beautiful-looking car, classy, muscular and conspicuous without being showy.
So I’ve gone from spartan Renault Zoe to profligate Bentley in the blink of an eye. I was really impressed with the Zoe, but when I slipped into the soft, thick chair, let my heels sigh into the deep carpet, inhaled the sweet odour of richly crafted wood and leather, pressed the starter and heard eight cylinders explode into an insistent, urgent rhythm, I laughed a slightly delirious laugh and thought ‘I must be bloody dreaming’. But I’m not.
By Steve Moody
Logbook: Bentley Continental GT V8 S Converible
Engine 3993cc 32v twin turbo V8, 521bhp @ 6000rpm, 502lb ft @ 1700rpm
Gearbox 8-speed auto, four-wheel drive
Stats 4.3sec 0-62mph, 192mph, 258g/km CO2
Price £164,800
As tested £196,575
Miles this month 365
Total miles 365
Our mpg 22.3
Official mpg 26.7
Fuel this month £89.04
Extra costs £0
How we specced our Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible
Sports Exhaust £1935
Blasting away from poor people without a fanfare? Then option the sports exhaust to ram your point home.
Neck Warmer £805
Breathes warm air on to your neck, so there’s no need for that army surplus balaclava.
Mulliner Driving Specification £6185
A money-saving option packaging a number of popular bits together, like a Shell garage Meal Deal, MDS offers 21-inch seven-spoke, diamond-turned black alloys, drilled alloy sports pedals, embroidered emblems in the headrests, fancy fuel and oil caps and quilted leather cabin leather. But no Monster Munch?
Vehicle Tracking System £1400
Oi, if any snivelling, evil car thieves are reading this: this car could be tracked to the far side of the moon. So don’t even bloody think about trying to half-inch it.
Storm Grey paint £4825
From the ‘extended paint range’, with hints of blue, into a grey base, probably matching your yacht’s hull.
Premier Specification £6895
Naim hi-fi, twin front armrests, rear-view camera, and front seats able to massage, heat and cool.
Adaptive Cruise Control £2125
Why is it £800 dearer than the smarter system you’ll find in an Audi A8?
Hand Cross Stitching upholstery £2815
Just like you did at primary school, just slightly more skilled. In a choice of colours.
Storage Case £480
Too small for sunglasses; never have Smints and parking change had such an upmarket home.
