Bentleys on Ice! Drive a Continental across a lake in Finland

    At Bentley's 'Power on Ice' tour, drive a Continental or Flying Spur with a rally legend

    Bentley, a company clearly enthused by the simple, childlike joy of "Disney on Ice presents: Frozen," has elected to take its 572-hp Continental GT3-R to the icy wonderland of northern Finland. You know those videos of rednecks storming across lakes on snowmobiles -- propelled forth by sheer horsepower and the weight of their huevos? Yeah, driving a 2.5-ton AWD barnstormer on a frozen lake in Finland is probably like that.

    Bentley's Power on Ice tour returns not to a kiddie-filled civic center near you, but to Kuusamo, Finland, just shy of the Arctic Circle, nine hours north of Helsinki. Don't worry, Bentley wouldn't make you slog it out to the frozen wastes -- there's a private jet. A two-night's stay at the Chalet Ruka Peak ensues, where the liquor will flow like water. (Scandinavians and Northern Europeans alike treat their clear spirits in the same way middle school boys treat purple nurples, atomic wedgies, Indian burns, etc. -- painful contrivances to be savored.)

    And over the next two days, Finnish World Rally Champion and certified "Bentley Boy" Juha Kankkunen -- the Most Interesting Man in Rallying, who won the Dakar Rally in 1998, operates an ice-driving academy of his own, owns a Gran Turismo garage's worth of rally history, occasionally farms salmon and set a world speed record in 2011, in a Continental Supersports, on ice, twice -- takes hapless warm-weather denizens onto a 6-foot thick frozen lake surface, designed by himself, to teach well-paying novices the ancient and noble art of ice-driving, a storied tradition passed to every young Finnish child.

    The formula is pretty simple: Bentley Continentals and Flying Spurs, plus studded tires, plus 500 or so horsepower, plus a Group B veteran who made it big during the Golden Age of WRC, equals fun, hilarity, and "potent ice power." Bentleys on ice! Rumors that the 2015 Mulsanne Speed, with its 811 lb-ft of torque and 3-ton curb weight, had its availability pulled for fear of spooking Russian icebreakers have yet to be confirmed. 

     This year, the Continental GT3-R will make an appearance. Only Kankkunen gets to drive it. If you go and win 23 rally races, maybe you can, too.

    After the feeling returns to your fingertips, it's time to discover the simple joys of the Finnish sauna and enjoy "contemporary Finnish cuisine" (not surströmming). You can go snowmobiling for an alternative look at ice traversing possibilities. You can go "ice karting." You can't drift a 70-mph wheelchair on ice. But, arguably the highlight of the trip, you can take a "nighttime Husky-sled safari adventure to a historic reindeer farm." The Husky sled dogs have far less combined horsepower than your average Bentley but are a lot cuddlier to the touch.

    On Bentley's website, the schedule is filling up fast. At a base price of $14,305, you could conceivably move to Maine, buy an old Volvo, and hoon about until you fall through the ice and subsequently make the local papers. But then, there wouldn't be any sled dogs.