The brand new Bentley Continental GT Pace surpasses its top-ranking predecessor

It should be straightforward to put in writing concerning the new, fourth era Bentley Continental GT and GTC Pace. As common as clockwork, Bentley updates and overhauls its flagship grand tourer each few years, including in new expertise, burnishing the capabilities and expressive shops of its staff of craftspeople and customarily making issues sooner, smoother, extra environment friendly and, properly, higher.

Provided that the final iteration of the GT was fairly good, all that continues to be is to mark this new one down as glorious. Job performed, then? In lots of respects, sure. Bentley furnished us with model new examples of each the GT and the convertible GTC, put Wallpaper* up in a cavernous suite in The Chedi Andermatt and by some means contrived to seek out glorious climate for round 200km of very fantastic, clear Swiss alpine passes. It was fabulous.

So why is that this automobile so good? The GT was the automobile that remodeled Bentley’s fortunes, turning it from a producer of staid-looking however brutishly quick efficiency grand tourers and saloons, the latter carefully associated to choices from then sister firm Rolls-Royce. The Volkswagen Group acquired the distinguished pair in 1998 however in 2003 there was an important schism in luxurious motoring, and the Rolls-Royce title (and title solely) fell underneath the management of BMW. VW retained the historic manufacturing facility at Crewe and a long time of engineering and craft expertise, albeit a lot that was caught a number of generations previously.

The very first Continental GT went on sale in 2003 having debuted the 12 months earlier than on the Paris Motor Present. The automobile represented a large funding and a substantial leap of religion for the VW Group, pushed by means of partly by the persistence of Adrian Hallmark, then Bentley’s Board Member liable for Gross sales & Advertising and marketing and later to be the corporate’s CEO from 2018 to 2024. Hallmark had the backing of influential VW Group chairman Ferdinand Piëch, a educated engineer whose profession was marked by resource-hungry status tasks.

That first era automobile was an enormous success. Priced at round £110,000, it immediately broadened Bentley’s demographic, decreasing the everyday proprietor’s common age, and reaching into new markets. The mannequin was then given a large replace in 2011, by which level it was clear that Bentley thought-about the GT to be akin to its ‘911’, an evergreen mannequin title that would final for generations because it grew to become the vessel for brand spanking new advances in styling and expertise.

The next 12 months, Bentley geared up the GT with a V8 engine, a mannequin that sat alongside the W12 powertrain that had been with the automobile since its inception (one other piece of Piëch’s engineering largesse). In 2018, the Continental GT was completely refreshed as soon as once more to create the third era automobile.

That every one-new platform survives beneath this fourth era mannequin, however the W12 has lastly gone. From now onwards, the one out there powertrain is a twin-turbo Hybrid V8, one which’s shared with the brand new Flying Spur. With 782 PS , the Pace mannequin (which on the time of writing is the one GT and GTC out there) is essentially the most highly effective manufacturing automobile Bentley has ever made.

Regardless of this plethora of energy, the Continental preserves decorum by defaulting to electrical mode if you begin it. The battery is a modest 25.9 kWh, however it needs to be good for round 50 miles of pure EV drive, in addition to present the all-important electrical increase to the V8 and its twin turbos. That’s the place the headline energy determine comes from, and the hybrid system (additionally present in Porsche’s carefully associated Panamera) gives quite a few drive modes, together with a regeneration perform that places miles again on the battery if you’re cruising at pace.

The powertrain is healthier in actually each manner than the unique W12, and nonetheless manages to sound ferocious when pushed exhausting. Bentley factors out that ‘no synthetic noise enhancement is added within the cabin,’ not like different producers who’ve been identified to subtly increase the sound of an engine by means of the audio system.

The GT has at all times been a good-looking automobile, though Bentley’s makes an attempt to crystalise its weighty handsomeness right into a three-pronged design ethos – ‘resting beast,’ ‘upright magnificence’ and ‘countless bonnet’ – feels slightly compelled. Suffice to say that the GT’s resting beast face is connected to a really elegant automobile, a machine that takes full benefit of its mighty scale to create glorious proportions.

The design, which was unveiled earlier this summer time, soars slightly near the lofty heights of the Bentley Batur. This ultra-bespoke iteration of the GT, in-built an version of simply 18 , together with the open-topped Bentley Bacalar (constructed an version of 12), foreshadowed the brand new single headlight particulars of the GT, a departure from the 4 headlight face the automobile has had since its inception.

The Swiss launch offered the primary probability to get behind the wheel of the uprated automobile. The uninitiated could be forgiven for considering {that a} machine weighing in at almost 2.5 tons is just too substantial to have any sporting aptitude, ill-suited to the twisting hairpins of the Alps would. As a substitute, the placement was a measure of Bentley’s confidence within the new Continental GT. Within the arms of a vastly extra skilled driver than us, this huge machine hustled its manner up, down and throughout 4 of the nation’s most spectacular mountain passes, by no means as soon as feeling something lower than completely planted and devastatingly fast.

Lively all-wheel drive is paired with a veritable armoury of intelligent experience and dynamic management methods to maintain the automobile feeling planting, lithe and manner smaller than its bodily dimension would counsel. The air damped suspension has been tweaked to make the consolation setting plusher and extra pliable, with out compromising the stable, unyielding stability you want in sport mode. Briefly, The GT (and its open-topped GTC sibling) is an incredible, stunning factor, and it is exhausting to begrudge anybody who’s chosen to deploy the conspicuous quantity of funds required to amass one.

Because it was to start with, the Continental is a grand tourer that’s additionally an especially succesful sports activities automobile. For essentially the most half, the 100,000 or so fashions offered over the previous twenty years have gone to those that favour the previous, not the latter. That is significantly evident with the GTC, a machine pitched on the boulevards of Miami and Malibu, not the twistier spots of central Europe. That’s largely as a result of Bentley has ensured that luxurious, craft and expertise have at all times been a core a part of the GT’s character.

The inside is essentially unchanged from the Technology Three vehicles, however continues to be among the best of any modern automobile, luxurious or in any other case. There are gimmicky however rewardingly enjoyable parts just like the tri-rotating central sprint show, which flips from the display screen to dials to nothing, and naturally loads of scope for the chromatically challenged to wreak havoc on the meticulously assembled sprint construction and inside surfaces, courtesy of Bentley’s Mulliner customisation division.

For era 4, the Continental GT will get an all-new electrical structure, taking up board present ADAS (Superior driver-assistance methods) rules. We’re undecided how helpful ‘Clever Park Help’ will probably be within the Bentley’s world of valet parking and expansive driveways. An much more superfluous a celebration trick is ‘Distant Park Help’, which lets you remotely manoeuvre the automobile utilizing the Bentley app in your cellphone. Different improvements have a quiet frequent sense, just like the clever air-con that routinely switches to recirculation mode when it detects you’re in an extended tunnel.

Crucial fashionable expertise of all, pure EV drive, is notable by its absence. Like many different luxurious automobile makers, Bentley has seemingly moved its electrification programme over to the gradual lane now that hybrids are having fun with a late renaissance amongst luxurious automobile patrons. Though the corporate claims to be nonetheless on monitor to point out its first pure EV in 2026 – and guarantees that it received’t be a alternative for an present automobile – the power and suppleness of the Continental GT’s hybrid drive gives nearly all of clients all that they want for now.

Plug-in hybrids are now not a transitional expertise however truly one thing very fascinating, the automotive equal of getting your cake and consuming it. The GT Pace generally is a easy, silent electrical working machine that’ll glide right into a mews within the early hours with out waking the neighbours, in addition to a rabid, snarling sports activities automobile with acceleration that outpaces most EVs and improbably excessive high pace of 208 mph.

It’s not uncontroversial to say the GT is just too quick even for an autobahn, that final bulwark of automotive libertarianism. Regardless of that lurid, headline-grabbing determine and the bragging that’ll inevitably accompany it, the brand new Bentley Continental GT Pace represents a colossal achievement, a brand new summit for luxurious motoring.

Bentley Continental GT Pace, costs from £250,000+, BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors