Bentley car evaluation: The $384,000 Continental GTC Speed offers a smooth and powerful ride

The V-12 engine is useless. Long stay the V-12.

In the approaching years, supercar corporations like Lamborghini, Bentley and Rolls-Royce have all introduced phase-outs of their V-12 engines as they roll into the age of hybrid and electrical automobiles. In the meantime, they’re launching 12-cylinder masterpieces as odes to the final word in petrol energy – and rich prospects are snapping them up at a report clip.

In different phrases, on the very high of the car market, the 12-cylinder is dying, and demand has by no means been stronger.

With the king of combustion hitting the tip of its street, Bentley has launched the Continental GTC Speed. It’s a “W-12” street burner, through which the place three banks of 4 cylinders are organized in a sort of “W” configuration. Its uncooked energy is matched solely by its refined inside.

Despite a price ticket approaching $400,000, the GTC Speed is rapidly promoting out. Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmar, stated there are “only a few obtainable” earlier than Bentley rolls the final of its 12-cylinder engines off the road in April 2024.

“These fashions are already virtually bought out,” Hallmark informed CNBC. “It’s the tip of a nice period.”

So with the Continental GTC Speed, Bentley has determined to get together prefer it’s 1999.

The mannequin I drove carried a price ticket of $384,000. Its shade is named “Kingfisher,” a luminescent, shimmering blue that, prefer it’s namesake chicken, was born to fly. It was loaded with a few of Bentley’s hottest choices, together with 22″ black-painted “Speed Wheels,” a touring package deal for added consolation and beneficiant helpings of carbon fiber.

Inside, the GTC Speed was dripping with luxurious add-ons, from the distinction stitching on the seats (with “Kingfisher” and “Beluga” coloured threads) to the Bang and Olufsen sound system, precision diamond quilting and the deep-pile overmats for added foot consolation.

My favourite choices, additionally probably the most fashionable, is the “rotating show,” the place a part of the carbon-fiber dashboard flips over when the car begins to disclose its digital show, sort of just like the supercar model of the key wall in a mansion library. It prices an additional $6,600 — however hey, once you’re spending $380,000 for a car, what’s an additional six grand? (About 70% of Bentley homeowners are together with it.)

The most stunning a part of the Continental GTC Speed is the drive. As befits a car with a number of personalities, The GTC Speed has three driving modes: consolation, customized, Bentley and enhanced sport. Driving in consolation mode is like floating on a cloud, even on pot-hole ridden streets of New York and New Jersey. Bentley mode offers a steadiness between consolation and sport.

You may simply think about consolation mode ferrying its well-heeled driver to the nation golf equipment in Southern California and Southern Florida, two of Bentley’s greatest markets. All-wheel steering helps for these uncommon events when it’s important to park the car your self as a substitute of getting a valet do it.

Switch to sport mode, nevertheless, and the W-12 roars like a dragon roused from sleep. The suspension tightens into a crouch and the GTC goes to 0-60 in 3.6 seconds. It can hit a high velocity of 208 mph.

Even with an unladen weight of over 5,300 kilos, the Continental GTC Speed takes corners, stops and accelerations like a a lot nimbler supercar. Its particular windscreen and aerodynamics enable top-down driving even at excessive speeds with out a hair misplaced.

Sure, there are higher pure sports activities vehicles and higher luxurious consolation rides. But arguably no car places the 2 collectively – with the screaming swan music of a W-12 – fairly just like the Continental GTC Speed.