The new Bentley Continental GT Speed is the fastest yet

Speaker 1: [00:00:30] I've always rather admired. Bentley's naming strategy for its performance models. No random letters, just speed. And now is a new continental GT speed available both in the CUPA, which will come to in a bit. And this, the convertible version here in flame orange. Now you can tell [00:01:00] that it's the continental GT speed because of a few things. So it gets a darker grower up here and down there. This has actually got a black pack on it as well. Huge 22 inch wheels come at standard. This has got the optional carbon ceramics on it as well, 440 millimeter discs in 10 piston CS. And we've got different sills down here and just here 12, because this is of course got the w 12 engine in it. Now up to 650 brake horsepower up 24 brake horsepower on the standard w 12 [00:01:30] talk remains exactly the same at 664 pounds foot, which is 900 Newton meters. That means not 63 and a half seconds. Top speed, 208 miles an hour, which not actually that much speedier because it's only one mile an hour faster in top speed and 0.1 of a second, faster to 60 miles an hour, but it's not all about straight line. We'll come back to that in a bit as well. Speaker 1: [00:02:00] The w 12 starts slightly more enthusiastically in the speed, but as you set off, the three chamber air suspension feels as subtle as a normal continental GT inside the speed. Well, the differences are principally. You get this lovely dark tinted turned aluminium all around here. You to get the diamond in diamond filtered, stitching on the doors and the seats, you get [00:02:30] the little speed stitched into the headrests back there, and you get half leather and half Al Cantara, which obviously feels particularly nice on the steering wheel. As we left behind us, the pretty, if narrow streets of FINI and headed doubt into the Hills, we realized we had company. This is what I like about hit Italy. You know, for me for a second, a beautiful filming. We met these guys up where we were doing the statics and they've got, um, little refu trucks, little Dustin Loris. And the guy [00:03:00] behind me saw us and he set off in hop suit and he's now pedaling the thing for all it's worth behind us and beeping. Speaker 1: You have to love Italy. It is worth just mentioning that with the roof up, they say, this is it's three bels quieter than the last convertible. You'll say it's as quiet as the previous continental GT Q pay speed variance have always been [00:03:30] very popular simply because they represent the top of the tree. People like to have the most expensive model. And if it also happens to be the fastest, then so be it. But what have you don't just want the badge and the bragging rights. What if you do really crave some extra dynamism on, well, for a start, you'll want the co because to be honest, the convertible is very nice, particularly in Sicily on a sunny day, but I've never felt that it's structurally been the most rigid car. So to really test the handling, [00:04:00] we found ourselves a candy red and then headed perhaps surprisingly back into town Speaker 1: From 1983 to 1991 commun. So air base was the largest NATO base in Southern Europe, but no one has been here for 14 years. A lap of the facility first takes us round the seven hardened concrete bunkers where BGM [00:04:30] 1 0 9 G ground launched cruise missiles were stored. These were only designed to carry w 84 Thermo nuclear warheads. Then it's through the fuel station combined con 20.6 MPG. If you're interested before a quick trip into the fire station, which ironically has caught fire at some point past the red and white water tower, and then it's into the residential sector, complete with a school and enough housing for 2000 people. This would make [00:05:00] a great rally stage through here with all these houses past the silent supermarket and a theater. That's seen its last curtain call before diving through a gateway. And this brings a whole new meaning to swimming cool complex round the back of the theater under some Barb past another fire station. And then back to the beginning for another standing, dark love that sound. Speaker 1: [00:05:30] So in here, we've got three modes as with the standard continental we've got comfort and Bentley, which are by and large the same as before, because with this one, rather than just sort of stiffening everything up, make it all a little bit more focused. They wanted to increase the bandwidth, I suppose. So keep that comfort in there, make it still a Bentley as people like to say, but then when you put it in a sport mode, which we've got here, that's when things get interesting. This has obviously still got the eight [00:06:00] speed jewel clutch auto in it, but the shifts in sports, again, they've ramped it up for sport mode. So there twice as quick for this speed up to 95% of the talk can be sent to the rear wheels in sport mode, and it will AOR it at rear woods more readily too. Speaker 1: Part of the reason it can do this is because there is now an electronic limited slip differential between the rear wheels using clutch packs to distribute the talk from side to side, we've also got rear wheels steer for the first time on the continental [00:06:30] GT. We've seen it on the flying spur before, but not on this in most cars with the system. The rule of thumb is that the rear wheels turn in the opposite direction to the fronts at low speed to increase agility. And then in the same direction at high speeds to improve stability with a Bentley it's slightly more complex, they've tuned the algorithm. So that actually say on the entry to a corner, it can maybe sort of give you a little bit more stability and, and start steering in the opposite direction to give you more agility. [00:07:00] As you get further into the corner. Speaker 1: One of the interesting things with this is that they've changed the, the normal steering as it were. So the rack at the front, which normally is a variable ratio rack off center with this it's linear because we've got the real world steer. So in order to make it easier to kind of tune that rear steer and make it all work together, they've changed the rack, which is, I think it's interesting. I also think it's interesting that they've stuck with the standard Conti [00:07:30] GTS P zero rubber rather than going for anything more extreme. It's another indication that the brief was to retain a real breadth of ability. It is definitely still a GT, but it's an impressively dynamic one. Speaker 1: Having a closed road is just the coolest thing. I love the fact that when this does step out, it still feels actually remarkably [00:08:00] controllable. It doesn't feel like all that weight. Yes, you can feel it moving around because they haven't dialed the 48 bold anti roll system up sort of so hard. So you don't get any roll at all. So it does feel quite sort of natural with all that weight. You can work with it. And a really nice is it's just, it is still so precise. Actually. It doesn't feel like he's gonna hang you out to drive despite being really, obviously still a heavy car and there's still [00:08:30] weighs what 2,300 kilos, of course, for all that, this is huge amounts of fun. I'm well aware that this is also not the real world. And for all that, it's fun. This is not a car that you really want to Chuck around and push hard on a non closed road. Certainly not a narrower. The speed still feels big and you control it rather than connect with it. It's just as well. In other words, that the speed still does the comfortable GT thing as well as the lesser Continentals and what this w 12 speed [00:09:00] really got me thinking is that I'd love to see the E diff rear wheel steering and all the other upgrades on a lesser continental GT. The one with a lighter V8 in the front after all speed, eight has a nice ring to it.