Bentley Continental GTC Speed review: The grandest of tourers
The fourth-generation Continental GTC Speed is Bentley’s most powerful series production convertible ever, with 771bhp from a searing plug-in hybrid V8. If you can, you must…
Out of the 180-degree hairpin, hard left, and the road unravels before me like a catch on fine cashmere. To the left, a sheer and increasing drop. To the right, an uncompromising rock face, but it’s the first, unfettered opportunity to pull on the paddles, drop a couple of gears and go hard at the incline and the snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance.
This, the fourth-generation Bentley Continental GTC beneath me, is not wanting — a 4-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 armed with 591 horses at its own behest sees to that — but this state-of-the-art, plug-in hybrid powerplant has a 140kw electric motor strapped aboard that adds an additional 188bhp of its own, for a total output of 771bhp. That is mighty and makes this the most powerful production Bentley convertible ever.
It translates to a nick over three seconds from standstill to 60mph, just a bit beyond seven seconds to 100mph, and on to 177mph all up. With no roof.
This top-spec Speed model is, be in no doubt, supercar fast, if not hypercar fast. And with four-wheel-drive and four-wheel-steering, it grips for days, can get the power down in almost any conditions and then pivot on a pin-head. It’s deeply impressive, both statistically and in delivery. But there’s more even than that: a characteristic missing from its predecessors, suddenly present here, that manifests half-way up a Swiss mountain when I was least expecting it…
Bentley Continentals, you see, as a bloodline, have bandwidth. Of course they’re quick, and can be hustled (if sometimes under duress), but they also have a duality — an ability to cruise long distances (continents, if you will) in comfort and serenity. That’s smart, though inevitably that breadth of appeal is also limiting, for those complimentary functions — speed and comfort — are also competing and diametrically opposed. So, you might be left with the suggestion that the heft, standard of finish and ultra-luxury, leather-bound fittings of a broad and sumptuous cabin might inhibit the ultimate performance of a grand tourer. Never. More. Wrong.
Because as I bury the throttle into the Wilton and let the fire within loose, all is momentarily as expected. Far becomes near, quickly, the sound of the air rushing over the open cabin moves from roar to hiss and then… well, I don’t know, as I lift to allow the superbike at my shoulder to pass. Except. Except I check the mirrors, then over my shoulder, and then the mirrors again. And the bike isn’t there. Never was. The call was coming from inside the house…
In a plot twist, Continental IV, perhaps the ultimate sequel, chose now — in a world of onrushing electrification and batteries — to find a deep, sonorous and then very, very loud voice. A glorious going on angry bellow at the top end, poured down drain-sized tailpipes, that reminds every car enthusiast alive just why we love the smell of burning carbons in the morning. Even if it’s backed with an en vogue EV boost.
So I did it again, and again, and again. Up, down, around and over the mountain passes above Andermatt, where Goldfinger aboard a yellow Rolls-Royce was tailed by James Bond (who drove a Bentley, not an Aston Martin, in Ian Fleming’s books, just saying), and where for one glorious day the (mostly empty) roads were this enthusiast’s playground. As the Bangles had it in the Prince-penned ‘Manic Monday’, “let’s go make some noise.” Yes please, and thank you.
Have I gone as quickly in a car before? Yes. As noisily and in such a state of visceral delight? For sure. And in such comfort, with such surety having climbed among the clouds to the extent the rain comes? Certainly. But, truly, never, ever before all in one car. The grandest of tourers, the most cossetting of mile-munchers just found the gung-ho of an Aston, the finesse of a Ferrari and the voice of Lamborghini, but left it wrapped in Crewe’s finest hides and paintwork.
Which is not only akin to the dark arts, to riding two horses at once, but also a bit bonkers. Yes, it’s the bonkers Bentley. In the 1930s that would have meant something else, but as we approach the 2030s, it’s salvation. If you can, while you can, you must.
Bentley Continental GTC Speed
771bhp // 738lb/ft // 0-60mph in 3.2 secs // 177mph // 31g/km // From £259,500