Hello
You’ll find no electrification here – not yet, anyway. Instead we’re opting out for a few months of luxurious twin-turbo V8 escapism.
Bentley Continental GTC V8 S Month 1
The story so far
The droptop version of Bentley’s timeless Conti GT coupe, sent to show us just how special £280k can feel
+ Riotous performance with sumptuous comfort
- Not the Speed, so lacking that car’s playful tech; fuel bills
Logbook
Price £227,100 (£282,745 as tested) Performance 3996cc twin-turbocharged V8, 542bhp, 4.1sec 0-62mph, 198mph Efficiency 22.6mpg (official), 19.0mpg (tested), 284g/km CO2 Energy cost 38.0p per mile Miles this month 297 Total miles 1223
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 (turn to page 70 for more details, apologies for the shameless plug etc).
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 twodoor, 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 Bent
