How do you sell a car? With cheap finance or the offer of free floor mats, a brolly and full tank of gas? Not these cars, and not to these people. If displays of conspicuous consumption make you want to puke on your shoes, stop reading now. I’m watching two large men struggling with a vast silver platter so heavily laden with lobster and oysters that they can barely lift it onto the buffet table to replace the one the hungry guests have already cleared. There’s rare roast beef and really good champagne, and lots of both. There’s a man in the corner hand-rolling cigars to order. We can’t show you any pictures of this party because cameras are banned; in a moment, the three hundred or so attendees will be ushered outside to the floodlit poolside where half a dozen models in odd hats will reveal a new Bentley a month before it’s shown to the public at the Frankfurt motor show. The financial markets are in turmoil as I’m watching all this and the only reason those applauding haven’t lost another million today is that it’s Saturday. What makes the whole spectacle even odder is that it’s all being paid for by a grim-looking factory in the north-west of England. But Bentley wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work, and when those hands stop clapping, a lot of them will be signing order forms.