A week with the Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible, cool as ice

Every so often, automakers will lend us a car for a week's worth of evaluation. Here's our take on seven days spent with the 2014 Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible:

Day One: Here’s how this typically works: When a car reviewer gets to pick a vehicle up for review at an airport, he or she usually heads to some odd off-site lot where the keys are delivered with the fanfare reserved for buying a can of Pringles. When I arranged to drive a 2014 Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible, Bentley had the car brought to the airport curb in San Francisco. And that’s when I first felt it: an uneasy sense of people gaping at this white missile. The drab surroundings only made the car seem more like a celebrity, as if Charlize Theron had wandered into baggage claim. That’s the difference between everyday luxury and the rare world I’d fuss around in for a week; your Cadillacs and Mercedes and BMWs are all nice, but they don’t trigger spontaneous rubbernecking.

Day two: Bentley helpfully includes a sheet detailing the options of my tester, with its "Ice" paint that's a bluish tint which changes in light, the Naim 11-speaker sound system, the upgraded carpets and every other feature. Including the $1,000 gas-guzzler fee for the 521-hp twin-turbocharged V-8 under the Ice, the total cost is $250,665.

Here are things that cost less than this car: The median average home in the United States. Four years of education at Harvard University. One flight on Virgin Galactic into space. (OK, that last one hasn't happened yet, but they're taking deposits.)

Objectively, the Bentley's metal, walnut and hand-built interior can't add up to that price. That number includes not just the pieces and assembly of a luxury car — down to the knotted wood panels and solid aluminum trim and massaging seats — but the entrance fee into the club of top-end British luxury car owners. If Bentley was charging too much, that club would grow desiccated quickly; instead, Bentley sells all of the 10,000 cars it builds a year and senses room for more. But not many more, because any such club's value lies in keeping the velvet rope politely latched but the windows open.