Touched by an Arnage.(car)

Byline: Matt Davis

It was a Sunday. Among many good reasons for living across the Atlantic, the Formula One coverage here is tremendous. Coverage of all sports, apart from American college football, baseball and NASCAR, is tremendous. Mind you, F1 has become a considerable and seemingly irresolvable bore that still leads all ratings thanks only to its ravenous marketing machines. But anyway...

The choice this past Aug. 15 was between snuggling up to the idiot box for another deep sleep while Michael won at the Hungaroring or taking my new Bentley Arnage T-''mine'' for a week- out on the deserted Italian autostrade and statali (two-lane state highways). Deserted because it was Sunday, and because Aug. 15 is the Italian holiday Ferragosto, which in the Catholic religion, celebrates the Assumption. My anxious fingers left burn marks on the alcove shelf where once rested the Arnage key fob.

This fresh left-hand-drive 2005 Arnage T with Great Britain license plates was brought from Switzerland. When I opened the car's manual to uncover its delicious secrets, it was in German. I did my best Curly Howard double take-"Woo-bwoo-bwoo-bwoo!''-and chucked the leather-bound book back into the glove compartment and flat went for it.

You've never really hit 168 mph properly until you've done it on public roads for several minutes in something the size of-and with the oomph of-an Arnage T, 17 feet and nine inches of yee gads. The most powerful Bentley available in Europe at 450 hp, at maximum Arnage speed, I swear I saw cattle grazing by the road get younger, trees sucked all their summer leaves back in and I was no longer bald. These are just three ways a fully rumbling 6.75-liter V8 with twin Garrett T3 turbochargers can change your personal space-time continuum.

After taxiing three friends ...