► Not a hybrid… yet
► A convertible in winter?
► The ultimate bend of luxury and speed?
The universe works in mysterious ways. Highly benevolent ones too, it would seem. If there’s an unknowable and omnipresent consciousness up there/out there, frantically stitching together strands of fate like the making of the Bayeux tapestry on time-lapse, it is a CAR subscriber.
How else to explain me boldly proclaiming the Audi e-Tron GT that was my last long-term test car to be one of the finest GTs on sale, only for the next car into my life to be the machine many consider the rightful owner of that title, Bentley’s Continental GT? I have no idea why this remarkable privilege has been bestowed on me. Perhaps I invented chunky peanut butter in a previous life.
The Conti GT is the car you no doubt picture when you think of contemporary Bentley. It is the smallest (which isn’t to say it’s actually small; oncoming traffic wider than an Up invariably prompts an involuntary flinch), lightest (again…) and least expensive (ditto…) machine in Crewe’s three-car line-up. (Bentley insists there are four models, and that the Bentayga and its more luxurious, long-wheelbase sibling are two different cars, but the rest of the world surely struggles to differentiate the two.)
A two door, four-ish-seat grand tourer, it is as sporty as modern Bentley appears comfortable to let itself get, and has tackled GT3 racing and the Pikes Peak hillclimb with some success.
But a convertible? Arriving in winter? All part of the plan (and nothing to do with this being the only time we could get one; nothing whatsoever). The claim is that Bentley’s convertible is so effective at insulating you from the world beyond its windows – even when you’re roof-down and the roadside turf is frozen in glittering, crystalline shards – that the seasons are of no real concern. Year-round hedonism is the promise, thanks to air scarves and heated seats, armrests and steering wheel.
We’ll see, though we know from experience that everything else about the way Bentley builds its cars – weighty, all-wheel drive, and with hulking great combustion engines up front, blazing away like a blacksmith’s forge – qualifies them well for winter work.
This is a big year for the Continental GT, the car to which modern Bentley owes its existence, even if the Bentayga SUV currently accounts for the lion’s share of sales. Now into its third generation, it celebrated its 20th birthday in 2023 and this year gets a major update together with a hybrid powertrain.
Being smaller, lighter and less expensive than the Flying Spur and the Bentayga, it’s naturally the last Bentley to hybridise. But hybridise it must, given Bentley’s pledge to offer a hybrid version of each of its cars by 2025. And it’ll likely not do so quietly, either, given Bentley’s W12 engine isn’t long for this world and will leave a void where the Conti needs a bombastic flagship…
My pick of the GT range was always the GTC Speed (C for convertible), a likeably nonsensical combination of outlandish straight-line speed, droptop fun and the GT’s most agile and adjustable chassis. Only the Speed gets a limited-slip diff, a hefty rear bias to its all-wheel drive and rear-wheel steering.
But monumental though the W12s are, the most charismatic Continental GT has long been the V8 S, the car you see here and the UK’s favourite flavour of GTC, while the rest of the world prefers the gentler and more demure Azure.
The S is the sportiest V8 Conti GT, though its raciness is really only skin-deep – there are no S-specific tweaks to the three-chamber air suspension, vast brakes (10-piston calipers up front, reassuringly), anti-roll bars or variable-rate electric power steering. S specification gets you Dynamic Ride as standard (if you own a Conti GT without the 48-volt roll control system, we’d love to hear from you…), a gloss black finish to the details, a decent smattering of S badging and racier graphics on the driver’s display.
The other GTC variants are the Azure and the A, focused on luxury and wellbeing rather than charging about the place. Want pace and wellbeing? Then you’ll need a Mulliner, with its combination of W12 urge and bespoke, best-of-everything craftsmanship.
Just as the chassis set-up is as per every other V8 GTC, nor, at 542bhp and 568lb ft, can the S’s twin-turbo, 4.0-litre powerplant claim any advantage. But with the potency to sling 2335kg to 62mph in just 4.1sec (and on to 198mph if you’ve the gumption), it is hardly lacking.
And while the idea of a racier, rougher- round-the-edges Bentley isn’t without appeal (I once drove the Conti that broke the production-car record at Pikes Peak, and I’ve only just stopped laughing), it is the flair with which it alloys speed with luxury that sells the GT.
Short of actually driving a Conti GTC S, ideally roof down, petrichor on the breeze, the near-black grain of the Dark Fiddleback Eucalyptus wood veneer turned liquid amber in the brittle winter sunshine, Bentley’s configurator is a fine way to spend an afternoon/ fortnight. The options are almost infinite. If you fancy silver paint, for example (and I did; I lingered on Breeze by Mulliner for days), there are fully 14 to choose from. It’s a lot, but Bentley’s curated themes make a fine jumping-off point, to help keep the decision making from feeling overwhelming.
My final specification, with its not inconsiderable price of £282,745, pairs Cricket Ball paint (dark red with bronze undertones) with 22-inch Sports wheels finished in Satin Brodgar, a warm silver that manages to remain beautiful even caked in brake dust and winter grime. When it came to the cockpit, my list included the Rotating Display, a £4965 option that’s so perfectly on-brand (timeless yet techy; complex beneath the waterline yet serene above it) it really ought to be standard issue.
On the three faces you’ll find an infotainment touchscreen, a triptych of analogue dials, or (my favourite) a stretch of unbroken timber, affording you the luxury of being able to opt out of the wearying and endlessly connected times in which we live in favour of beautifully finished solace.
It’s just a wooden dashboard. But in concert with the V8’s potent murmur, feelgood like a hot bubble bath, and the velvet weightlessness of its air springs set to Comfort, the effect is remarkably soothing and restorative, like squeezing a fortnight on an empty white beach into your 30-minute drive to work.
Logbook: Bentley Continental GTC V8 S (month 1)
Price: £227,100 (£282,745 as tested)
Performance: 3996cc twin-turbocharged V8, 542bhp, 4.1sec 0-62mph, 198mph
Range: 249 miles (official), 221 miles (tested)
Efficiency: 22.6mpg (official), 19.0mpg (tested), 284g/km CO2
Energy cost: 38.0p per mile
Miles this month: 297
Total miles: 1223