Bentley Continental GT Speed

BENTLEY CAN LAY claim to being one of the last surviving artisans of the grand tourer, with a lineage stretching back to the original 200 kph Continental a car acclaimed in the ’50s as ‘ the fastest genuine four-seater in the world’. This lineage is so ensconced that not even the building of lightweight Supersports and GT3-Rs can tarnish the marque’s impeccable GT credentials. This is where the GT Speed enters the fray. There is nothing lightweight or track-focused about it. Aimed at freshly minted Lotto Millions winners and Forbes List veterans, it’s a car with no apparent
understanding of the term inadequacy. A R5.1m price tag (as tested) teams massive wheels, colossal carbon ceramic brakes with a supercar matching 467kW from its stoked W12 engine.

Fittingly, our candy coloured British car is wearing British plates and even the weather decides to turn uncannily British as we depart on our test drive. Rapidly accruing rainwater on the fastback rear window runs down like a game of Tetris in the rear view mirror. On the move the droplets accelerate as if in a rush to score some points. I’m thankful to be warm and dry inside the Bentley with its leather-clad ceiling, patterned leather arm rests, soft-touch leather steering wheel and a Beckham-approved Breitling clock atop the dash. Everything is left refreshingly uncluttered, and there’s genuine carbon fibre on the dash, as you’d expect, although the cabin would feel warmer still with some traditional walnut.

Visually, the GT still looks fresh and elegant, its chrome detailing and wheels bestowing an exterior demeanour that’s more stately than sporty as opposed to the GT V8’s darker colour palette. The result is that kids gathered in a prep school playground hardly give it a second glance as the Speed murmurs past they presumably pass it off as an old man’s car. They may have a point. Even the paddle-shifters for the excellent eight speed gearbox sprout up and out from behind the steering wheel beyond the reach of an urgent index finger, immediately changing the cars cognitive cog-swapping behaviour from spine snapping supercar to Cognoscente’s carriage.

Introduce throttle to the cushy lamb’s wool carpeting and the W12 responds with brute force acceleration. In fact, so rousing is the Speed’s big speed that a traditional 21-gun navy salute accompanying your arrival everywhere wouldn’ t go amiss. If you haven’ t built up boost it’s a bit slack off the line but from there speed builds at an exponential rate. Trying to fathom just how speedy it is isn’ t helped by the imperial mph measuring system on the speedometer. Neither is it helped by
the force-fed 6.0-litre’s muted acoustic range. Shifts from the ZF cog-swapper are sharp, up and down the box, and provide a welcome orchestral boom with each change.

In the rain, the massive rooster tails coming off the back are further evidence of just how great a hole in the air the GT is punching the spray must be twenty feet in the air at full chat. A 2 320 kg kerb weight isn't just a number either. It is constantly felt through the Speed’s 70 percent beefier and 10 mm lower suspension. You sense the Bentley’s full bodied underpinnings can’t react urgently enough to deflections as the baulking ride transmits that sprung mass back to the driver via the 21 inch wheels.

However, start to string a few corners together and rhythm builds easily. Pre-empting the colossal weight shift before it happens and relying on the massive grip from the big Pirellis is key. Beneath a layer of body roll is an agile direction change waiting to be exploited. I’d say it’s no less understeery than the GT V8 despite the weighty engine ahead of the front axle. A 58:42 weight bias is neutralised by the 40:60 front-to-rear torque split which in turn gives it a stellar if unspectacular grand touring solidity on the road. Less than stellar however, are the noisy ceramic brakes that bring you to a halt like A Streetcar Named Desire. They groan and graunch and couldn’ t be more conspicuous if you arrived everywhere screaming ‘Stella! ’ like Marlon Brando out the driver’s window. Sure, they provide relentless stopping force but other supercars manage to have weapons-grade brakes that don’ t sound like a tram with the handbrake left on.

In conclusion, even cars in this rarefied air are relative. Considering a Rolls Royce Wraith of similar power and urgency costs upwards of R8m, perhaps the GT Speed is actually the bargain of the century? Or it would be if it weren’ t for the R3.45m GT V8. A car that provides 90 per cent of the W12’s opulence, manages to turn a few more heads at the local prep school, won’ t embarrass you when you stop outside your country club, and sounds like a V8 hurricane when you leave again. Despite Bentley’s best efforts to turn the Continental GT from a Shire horse into a jet-powered war horse, the end result is still no stallion. And when there are thoroughbred modern Ferrari stallions staring it square in the face for the same price, I certainly know where I’d rather spend my R5.1m.

BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT SPEED

ENGINE  5 998cc twin turbo W12, 467kW @ 5 000rpm, 820Nm @ 2 000-5 000rpm
TRANSMISSION  eight-speed automatic torque converter, all-wheel drive
SUSPENSION  Double wishbone front, multi-link rear with air suspension front and rear
LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT  4 806mm/2 227mm/1 404mm
PERFORMANCE  4.2sec 0-100kph, 330kph top speed,14.5 ℓ /100km,338g/km CO2
WEIGHT  2 320kg
ON SALE  Now