Bentley has promised much from the new Continental GT Speed. It has a hybridised V8 for the first time which delivers a maximum output of 782hp. It will get you 50 miles on electricity alone. Combined, it will get you to 62mph in 3.2 seconds and go on to do more than 200mph. It is even more luxurious inside, very clever underneath and quite possibly prettier to look at. And yet the firm acknowledges that it has driven onto thin ice. Its average buyer, generally speaking, is about as interested in the advantages of battery power as a toddler is in the taste of broccoli. Many of them bought the old W12-powered GT Speed precisely for its innate W12ness - being proportionally silly and wastefully thirsty was all part of the Bentley charm. Repeatedly filling the tank was not a problem. Tediously topping up a battery might be.
Equipped with impressive insight into its customers’ thought process, the manufacturer knows it cannot hope to instruct its affluent clientele that its new way is fundamentally better. Instead it has sought to outdo itself with such ferocity that there can be no argument about the superiority of the latest model or its assumed position as the world’s finest Grand Tourer. Hence the emphasis on power and performance and rolling refinement, and not so much on increased efficiency or the even the tax advantages of buying a hybrid (which are substantial). Bentley is delighted to champion either attribute when asked about them, of course - but it’s wow factor alone that’s meant to win out.
As initial impressions go then, being able to hear the new model idle from the first floor of a hotel room - one roughly the size of a five-a-side pitch - is a good one. Bentley has worked hard on what the new 4.0-litre V8 sounds like, and being able to distinguish it through several panes of Swiss glass is precisely the sort of payoff you imagine its engineers were aiming for. But it turns out it’s not quite as simple as that: as much as Bentley would like it too, the car cannot fire up like its predecessor did because it was homologated as a plug-in hybrid. So, left to its own devices, it actually blinks awake to the sound of silence in EV mode. When stationary - and indeed, on the move too - the V8 only arrives by default if you turn the mode dial to Sport.
This speaks to a crucial (if predictable) difference between the two generations of GT. The old one, for all the moving parts contained within its 6.0-litre engine, was deceptively simple. The new one, despite its maker’s best efforts, is not. Previously it was possible - likely, even - that you would remain in the quintessential ‘Bentley’ setting for your entire journey, content in the knowledge that every dynamic aspect would be balanced to the manufacturer’s preference. Naming it ‘Bentley’ was a masterstroke: it implied that everything around it was extraneous and less discerning by distinction. Now, if you want to discover what the new V8 has to offer, you will need to go looking for it. No wonder questions regarding clarity of purpose crop up almost immediately.
Likely sensing that this would be an issue, Bentley has grasped the nettle and gone for the next best thing: a properly multifaceted GT. It is aided in this regard not just by the obvious difference between a 190hp electric motor mounted in the transmission housing and the twin-turbocharged 600hp V8 ahead of it, but by an overhauled suspension that adds two-chamber air springs and new dual-valve dampers to a chassis that already featured 48-volt active anti-roll, all-wheel steering and an electronic limited-slip differential. Greater tuning bandwidth is allied to superior balance thanks to a lighter engine in the nose and the presence of a 25.9kWh battery behind the rear axle. For the first time in its history, the GT’s weight distribution is a rear-biased 49:51. All two-and-a-half tonnes of it.
You won’t take all this in the moment you get behind the wheel, of course. You’ll be too busy a) marvelling anew at the super-opulent interior which has changed very little, and b) trying to decide if you actually like the Bentley’s default, softly softly catchee monkey mode, where, for all the time you don’t get beyond 75 per cent of accelerator pedal travel, the GT relies upon the 332lb ft of torque the motor alone supplies. In the Panamera (which shares both the engine and its hybrid tech, along with much else besides) Porsche won’t let your right foot get that far before the V8 kicks in - that Bentley has decided to prolong your relationship with battery power says much about how much it has leaned into the car’s Dr Jekyll setting. It is openly betting that once buyers have experienced the GT’s newfound capacity to waft silently from pillar to post, they will come to embrace it.
This seems plausible enough. As you might expect, the car is neither crushingly fast nor painfully slow under battery power. Accelerating purposefully and near silently suits Bentley’s luxurious ambience, predictably in town, but also out of it. Any owner uninterested in nailing it the moment they’ve exited the village (or city or gravel driveway) might find out what countless other plug-in hybrid buyers have previously discovered: that it’s very easy to rub along in EV mode. Granted, that inimitable feeling of being in the shallow end of the W12’s vast reservoir of power is absent, but the new GT is too amenable to throttle input - and too handsomely well-controlled even on optional 22-inch wheels - for you to muster anything much in the way of grievance. Memorable it isn’t. But affable and well-isolated it certainly is.
So much so in fact that the transition from electric to V8 seems a bit abrupt when it does finally come. The GT juggles the two effectively enough for it to not quite seem like you’ve pulled the pin on your overtaking grenade, but it is sufficiently noticeable that there hardly seems any question that EV mode is meant for run-of-the-mill sauntering - not full-time use. The moment you’ve had enough of the placid carrot, Bentley expects - encourages you, really, thanks to a stodgy Hybrid mode - to actively break out the big stick via the Sport setting. And there is good reason to do so: as it has proved in Porsche colours, given the limelight the V8 is as likeable as a lottery win, especially with the scene-setting snarl that has been coaxed from it without the need for performance-enhancing jiggery-pokery.
Tellingly, in Sport you get all the powertrain subtlety missing from EV mode; you’ll need to keep one eye on the instrument cluster to know for sure when the free flow of electrons is augmenting the low-down torque under load - and you’ll generally want to avoid doing that because pretty much any progress is an eyes-front affair. With the electric motor taking care of lag - and the requirement for cylinder deactivation similarly redundant - the 4.0-litre unit gets to be a bit less complex, and a bit more focused at doing V8 stuff. It uses simpler, single-scroll turbochargers and boasts 350 bar fuel injection pressure (where previously it was 200 bar). The resulting performance is suitably irresistible; more willing than the old W12 and inevitably more responsive - although never to the point where it seems inorganic or preternaturally boosted. And despite its eye-popping on-paper stats, the combination is not so potent that it overawes the car, even when it’s making shorter work of the GT’s kerbweight than the old W12 did.
While this urgency and outright speed is obviously a means to its own end, Bentley has placed no less emphasis on increased speed of thought elsewhere: it is not enough that the new GT be demonstrably quicker than the old car in a straight line, the manufacturer wants it to appear swifter across the board. Hence the emphasis on it being quicker to change direction and (outwardly at any rate) lighter on its feet. It is worth recalling that the previous model, aided by four-wheel steering and active anti-roll, was no slouch in the first regard - and yet the upshot of its adjusted weight distribution is among the easier things to appreciate in the new car. The nose-heaviness of the W12 could be driven around - or belligerently ignored - but the hybrid’s turn-in, encouraged not just by the enhanced balance, but also the closer attention of the new dampers in Sport, is fundamentally improved.
As it always tends to, greater neutrality pays off through the corner and leads inexorably (thanks to a rear-biased torque split) to mild rotation if you keep adjusting its line with your foot. Ultimately, this will probably be less consequential to most than the lighter steering, which is intended to show up the advantages of a pointier front end at all speeds. Occasionally, you want for the slightly more thickset feel of its predecessor, if only because it harmonised so well with the directional stability of the old chassis - but the more you engage with its more direct rack, the better reconciled you get with a leaner, cleaner-cut GT. Only sporadically are you forced to contend with the basic fact that the new model isn’t any leaner (typically under braking) and even then it’s amazing how readily you cut the car just the right amount of slack. ‘Well, okay - but it is a Bentley’. Many buyers, especially those already half persuaded by the notion of a faster, wieldier Continental GT, can probably be trusted to turn up with the same forgiving mindset.
Some will not. The new model is a hyper-assured solution to a problem that they would prefer didn’t exist. And by diversifying the old-school powertrain, it is inescapably true that some of the old-school charm - which required no real explanation beyond ‘push to start’ - has been diluted. Nevertheless, the gains achieved on the flip side of this equation are too prominent to be dismissed simply by default. The early evidence suggests this is a better driving, better riding, faster and fitter for purpose (that purpose including fitting into the world for another life cycle) Bentley Continental GT. There is a very real chance you’d never need to plug it in - the V8 can be called upon to recharge the battery when recuperation alone is not enough, which does nothing for the fuel consumption (shrug) but is very effective even over even modest distances - meaning the most significant objective complaint beyond basic weight gain might be the boot space sacrifice required by the battery placement. First-world problems, eh?
Specification | 2024 Bentley Continental GT Speed
Engine: 3,996cc twin-turbocharged V8, electric motor, 25.9kWh battery
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 782 combined (600@6,000rpm)
Torque (lb ft): 738 combined (590@2,000-4,500rpm)
0-62mph: 3.2sec
Top speed: 208mph
Weight: 2,459kg
MPG: 27.4
CO2: 29g/km
Price: from £250,000
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