Bentley shows off fresh Continental GT
What’s the news?
Bentley has shown us the third generation of the Continental GT coupe, a utter decade-and-a-half since the original car was launched. Railing on the same platform as the fresh Porsche Panamera, the fresh Conti is lighter and has a far more luxurious interior than before, but retains its mighty 6.0-litre W12 turbo engine.
Exterior
While it looks overall similar to the outgoing model, Bentley has used a fresh process called ‘superforming’ that heats the car’s aluminium exterior panels to five hundred degrees Celsius before being shaped, which permits for sharper, slimmer lines. There are some elements of the Speed six concept car in there (the broader, lower grille, the smaller lights) and fresh touches such as the almond-shaped tail lights and more inset Kamm-style rear end.
Bentley’s engineers have trimmed about 70kg from the overall weight of the car, and extended the wheelbase by 135mm. That means you get more interior space, and better weight distribution, which should be to the benefit of treating.
Interior
Inwards, the cabin is entirely fresh and a massive improvement on the outgoing car’s interior, with many more high-tech features. The traditional wood (now a sustainably-sourced Koa veneer), hand-polished chrome and knurled metal fittings remain, but there is now a fresh ‘rotating display’ that rolls out the big 12.3-inch central screen from a hidden position in the centre console. It has a fully customisable menu setup, but (just to display that Bentley hasn’t lost glance of tradition) also has three analogue dials set into a third side of the rotating section. The instrument pack is also all-new, and now all-digital too.
The 20-way adjustable seats get a fresh diamond-in-diamond stitching, which Bentley says creates the effect of “a floating quilted surface in a sea of leather, which is extraordinarily soft to touch.” There’s also a fresh, optional covering for the centre console, inspired by the inwards of a Swiss observe and called Cotes de Geneve.
Mechanicals
That W12 engine now produces 635hp, and a staggering 900Nm of torque. Driving all four wheels through a fresh eight-speed automatic transmission, it can sprint from 0-100km/h in Three.7 seconds and has a top speed of 330km/h.
For those hoping for a much-improved environmental spectacle, well, sorry, but it does spew out 278g/km of CO2 (however that is sixteen per cent better than before), and average fuel economy is 23mpg (around 4mpg better than the old car). Those hoping for greener things should wait for the launch of the Four.0-litre V8 and plugin hybrid versions in due course. Still, the W12 does have variable displacement tech that shuts down half of its cylinders under a light throttle blast.
There’s a fresh four-wheel-drive system that actively diverts engine power to all four wheels depending on where it’s most needed, instead of sending sixty per cent to the rear wheels as before. The suspension also gets active anti-roll bars, managed by a fresh 48-volt electrified system, which can keep the car vapid during hard cornering, but which disengage at other times to improve the rail quality. Springing and damping is done by air suspension, with chambers sixty per cent larger than on the old model. They’re monitored by a Continuous Damping Control unit to ensure a good balance inbetween agility and rail. Oh, and it has massive brakes too – 420mm at the front.
Anything else?
Wolfgang Durheimer, chairman and chief executive of Bentley Motors, said: “Bentley has been at the forefront of luxury Grand Touring for almost one hundred years. The fresh, third-generation Continental GT is the pinnacle of our design and engineering achievements and marks the next step in Bentley’s journey. We are the world leader in luxury mobility and our products and services define fresh luxury in the automotive world. The fresh Continental GT encapsulates our desire to innovate as well as feast our heritage and take the Bentley ownership practice to the next, unparalleled level.”
The two thousand eighteen Bentley Continental GT makes its world debut at the Frankfurt Motor Display next month.