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`The car is yours, and so are any speeding tickets,” warned Vernon Smith ashe tossed us the key to the 1997 Bentley Continental T sports coupe powered bya 400-horsepower, V-8 engine capable of launching 2.5 tons of metal, glass, rubber and leather from zero to 60 miles per hour in 5.8 seconds and cruising at 100 m.p.h. over the speed limit.

Price: $324,500, speeding tickets optional.

Smith, who runs the Rolls-Royce/Bentley operations for Steve Foley Cadillacin Northbrook, will get three T’s to sell through 1997, one of which he made available before being turned over to its owner.

Rolls and its performance partner, Bentley, cater to the filthy rich looking for a new bauble. But in shelling out $300,000 plus to be tres chic, owners usually soothe the ego while savaging the flesh.

A Rolls or Bentley forces you to make a few sacrifices–basically having tosit on marble-hard seats and bounce coiffed domes against the roof and designer-clad butts on the seats with each flaw in the pavement.

Rolls and Bentley are known as rough-riding, sluggish-handling dinosaurs, though those who paid $300,000 plus for one seldom let commoners in on the secret.

Now along comes the 1997 Bentley Continental T, a chop job of the Bentley Continental R with a 5-inch shorter wheelbase, leading you to expect an even more unmanageable machine. But the car we tested must have been a Bentley impostor. The automatic ride control that adjusts the electronic suspension toroad surface and driving conditions smoothed out blemishes in the road withoutbeing overly soft.

We braced against the door in preparing to exit the expressway and have the2.5 tons of metal, glass, rubber and leather swing wide toward the grassy knoll.

Instead, the Bentley sat upright. If the seat side bolsters weren’t too small for optimum lateral support at speed, our ribs never would have touched the leather door panels entering or exiting that ramp.

The Bentley T rests on 18-inch, high-performance, speed-rated, low-profile radials. One look at the treads, and the vehicle appears to have arrived from the track at Indy rather than the boat from Crewe. To make room for the 18-inchers, the wheels are dramatically flared, a distinctive and decorative touch.

Those 18-inch treads give you a massive paw print to grab onto the pavementin turns, through corners, on and off merger ramps and along straightaways. And with standard traction control, which responds to wheel spin by directing braking to the offending wheel and regulating fuel flow to slow the engine, those 18-inch paws perform on dry or wet pavement.

The 6.75-liter, turbocharged V-8 develops 400 h.p. and 590 foot-pounds of torque. Tap the pedal and everything else on the road grows faint in the rearview mirror–a chunk of glass the folks at Rolls should enlarge so you canview even more cars fading in the distance.

When yo u put the pedal to the 2-inch carpeted metal, the V-8 responds with a muffled growl rather than the traditional turbo whistle. It’s a reminder of the power at your disposal, though a better reminder is the fuel gauge, which visible moves from F to E as you motor down the highway.

The 12 m.p.g. city/17 m.p.g. highway rating earns the car a $4,500 gas-guzzler tax. While the engine guzzles, you can’t. No cupholder, the only ’97 Rolls or Bentley without one.

The two adults relegated to the back seat better have a wonderful sense of humor–and short legs.

The T boasts some other noteworthy features, such as a push-button starter in the center console and machined aluminum covering the dash and console, where mahogany had been.

With the push-button starter, you still insert the key in the ignition and turn it to “on,” but then you push the red quarter-sized button in the center console to ignite the V-8.

Smith said the push-button starter adds to the s orty image.

The machined aluminum gracing dash and console comes in a pattern of triangles. This is the same look that appeared on the Bentley and Duesenberg of the ’30s, Smith noted. You’ll love or hate it. We hated it.

Other notable touches include a coinholder in the console large enough to hold paper or change, heated seats that motor forward when the backs are released so passengers can slip into the cramped rear seat, CD player/cellularphone under the center console armrest, push-button gauge in the dash to read oil level without looking at the the under-the-hood dipstick, dash-mounted boot (trunk)/bonnet (hood)/petrol (gas) tank opener buttons, dust (car) cover and a steering column that automatically motors away from the driver when the car is turned off for an easier exit.

However, the T is not without faults. You can press a button on the floor-mounted transmission lever to switch into a more aggressive “sport” shift pattern, but in doing so the suspension adopts a firm–call it stiff–mode. Blemishes that went unnoticed before feel like logs in the road.

Our biggest gripe was the leather interior and its “soft tan” finish that looks “hard orange” and more suitable for decorating a bordello (so we’re told) than an auto. Why dress expensive leather in a cheap color?

Only 15 ’97 Continental T’s will be built and sold through the end of 1997 and then production will be increased to 35 units in 1998.

>>1997 Bentley Continental T Wheelbase: 116.5 inches Length: 206.3 inches Engine: 6.75-liter, 400-h.p., turbocharged V-8 Transmission: 4-speed automatic EPA mileage: 12 m.p.g. city/17 m.p.g. highway Base price: $324,500, which includes $4,500 gas-guzzler charge. Price as tested: $324,500 and no cupholder Pluses: Breaks with the butt-bumping ride and cement-mixer handling you’ve come to expect from parking your jeans on Rolls or Bentley leather. Sits on road-grabbing 18-inch tires. V-8 packs a potent punch. Only 14 other folks will be seen driving one. Coinholder also accepts bills. Dual air bags, ABS and traction control standard. Minuses: Rear-seat room at a premium. When you slip the transmission intothe sport mode, you also slip into firm-suspension mode and the butt bumping begins. Only thing that moves faster than the car is the fuel gauge. Turned aluminum replaces mahogany on dash and console and takes some getting used to,as does the bordello orange leather interior.