2026 Bentley Bentayga Speed review: RIP W12

G'day, I'm Paul and this is the new Bentley Bentayga Speed. Kind of ushers in a new era for Bentley because gone is the W12 and it's now all about V8. In fact, Bentley actually changed the formula they have for their vision moving forward. They were going to be fully electric by 2030 but they've now pushed that out to 2035 and potentially beyond and gone all in on internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrids and then eventually an electric car as well. So today's going to be all about the Bentayga Speed. I'm also going to be looking at the updated versions of Conti with plug-in hybrid drivetrain, not the Speed because we've already driven that. When those videos go live, I'm going to leave a link in the description below but today is going to be all about the Bentayga Speed, some of the cool options that are fitted to this and some of the spec changes that make this just blisteringly quick. So let's have a look at it, we'll take it for a drive and then I'll give you my final verdict at the end. Now, I'm shooting this basically all on my own so it's going to be a little low-ranked compared to our normal videos but this is the new Bentayga Speed. So like I said in the intro, Bentley has moved away from these enormous engines and really just honed in on making traditional engine technology more efficient. So this now uses a twin turbocharged V8, almost 500 kilowatts of power which is absolutely mental and they've achieved that by increasing the size of the turbochargers and also going down the path of larger fuel injectors as well. This is the first time that Bentley has offered a 23-inch alloy wheel for Bentayga so that is enormous and I'm curious to see how it affects the ride because 23 inches is huge, absolutely huge and that's on a 35 profile tyre so it does have air suspension with adaptive damping. So we'll see how that affects it. Now Bentayga Speed as well has really just expanded the amount of customisation you can do. So you can see this vehicle here has basically blacked out everything. So black grille, black Bentley badge which makes it look quite sinister. There's billions of combinations as well that a customer can choose when they're speccing their Bentley and that's before they even go to Mulliner and go above and beyond in terms of specifications. One of the other things they've changed as well is the availability of different coloured callipers. So there's another six options to pick from. This particular car has carbon ceramic brakes fitted to it so you can see them under there. I've actually been a bit underwhelmed with Bentley's brakes. They sort of boast the largest diameter rotor on the market. I think it's 440mm but I just haven't been blown away by them so I'll be curious to test this out when we get it to Australia and take it to the proving ground. And then you can also go for gloss or matte finish on the roof there. I love this matte colour as well, it's like a sort of emerald green. It looks absolutely sensational. Different pinstripe colours available as well, sort of run down the side of the car there. Take you around to the back because I think this is probably the bit that I'm most excited about. You can now fit an Akrapovic exhaust to your Bentayga. So it's a bit hard to see there but there's the Akrapovic logo. Now, this is what it sounds like, have a listen. How good does that sound? Genuinely crazy. Bentayga Speed also gets these clear taillights. Who would have thought these came back into fashion? I remember these were a thing back in my teenage days. People would fit them to their Commodores and their Falcons but it's now back. So you'll know that a Bentayga Speed has been optioned with the Akrapovic because Bentayga Speed normally has a twin exhaust outlet, this has a quad exhaust outlet. You can actually hear someone else on this launch event down there revving the crap out of that one. It has no soft limiter as well which is why they're able to get such ridiculous revs out of it. You can see that pinstriping continue on the spoiler there as well. Alrighty, I'm going to take you inside the cabin so you can have a little look-see at what that looks like before we head out for a drive. OK, so here is the interior. Probably one of the things that I like most about Bentley in general is the amount of customisation you can do. So they've done a great job with the specs on the cars here at the launch but there was a car that I spotted before, so this one has like carbon fibre inlay here on the doors. It actually had stone, a 0.6mm thick layer of stone on the door which is just such a cool thing to have. You know, we've gone from wood to piano black to carbon, you know, to have stone now available is pretty cool. And you can see the seat design there with that Speed insignia and then the pinstriping. Like I mentioned before, you have heaps of customisation options available through Bentley Direct but if you do want something above and beyond, you go through Mulliner and that allows you to have virtually a completely bespoke vehicle that no one else will have on the road which, you know, is, if you're spending this kind of money, that is what people really want. I'll jump inside here and show you this as well. So screen ahead of the driver there, this is also custom to speed so you can change what appears there, how big the dials are, gives you all your key information. Infotainment screen in the centre there as well. Now this one's interesting, it's sort of a little bit laggy before when I was playing with it and it's probably one of the downsides to Bentley's infotainment systems. I think they probably just need a bit more grunt. Strange thing is they've got access to stuff like Porsche's new infotainment system with Android Automotive OS yet they're still stuck with this on a new model. I just think that that needs some work. Then look at this beautiful Bentley clock up the top there with, they call these organ stops. So you pull those out and push them in to stop or start air flow. Speed logo over there as well. I'll show you what it looks like in the second row. So Bentayga's available with an extended wheelbase as well so if this isn't quite big enough for you, you can go for the longer wheelbase version. You can see those seats recline in the second row as well. Then I'll jump in the back here, give you an idea of knee room and stuff, so decent amount of knee room there. Some blinds to keep people's vision out of the car. Panoramic glass roof there as well. There's a screen down there for controlling your personalisation options and this appears to be a four seat configuration so you're not going to fit anyone there on the middle seat. Then this basically just drops down to give you access to some cup holders and then a couple of charging ports in there as well. Show you what the boot looks like. So with the boot you open it by pushing the Bentley button just there and then obviously power tailgate, decent sized boot there too. So this is not a plug in hybrid, the cars we'll be driving tomorrow in a separate video are plug in hybrids so they're the ones that we'll be focusing our attention on tomorrow. But yeah that is your first look here at the Bentley Bentayga Speed. We're going to hop in now, take it for a spin and see what it's like once we find some corners. Righto, so we've just hit the road in the Bentayga Speed. Now if you haven't driven a Bentley before, it is all about comfort and I think one of the issues, and not really issues, but one of the things the brand had to think about when it comes to how they engineer this car is do you give it heaps of balls and then as a result of that make it too loud and unruly or do you dial it back a bit and sort of retain some of the comfort functions and they've done exactly that, they've dialled it back to retain the comfort functions but they've had to go a little unruly on some of it and some of it will come with an option pack, like I mean this has the Dynamic Pack which has the Akrapovic exhaust as an option that's available to it and then if you do option the carbon ceramic brakes as well, you then get the stability control that gives you extra slip. And just prior to jumping in the car here for the road drive, we actually did like a little drift course on gravel and that was pretty unreal because what it was able to show us is that they've engineered a car here with a twin turbo V8 engine that can have rear bias and has a brake bias torque vectoring system that allows the rear to rotate as required, so when you get on the throttle into a low friction corner, you're able to get the rear end to come around and then you get on the throttle and you're getting quite neutral response there and it sort of allows the car with its four wheel drive system to then just sort of drift around, so pretty cool setup and the fact that they've been able to make a vehicle that is well over two tonnes handle and perform like that I think is pretty comical. So just as a recap, twin turbo V8 under the bonnet, this basically replaces previous versions of the Speed that had stuff like a W12 and compared to the old V8 that they used to have in the Bentayga, this is significantly quicker. We're talking about a car now that'll do 0-100 in just over 3 seconds, got almost 500 kilowatts of power, almost 900 newton metres of torque, this is some serious mumbo and then a top speed of 310kmh which is just ballistic for a vehicle this size, so they really have worked to give this the feel that it needs and I had the chance to talk to the Head of Vehicle Dynamics for Bentley and he mentioned that they have the technology now to make vehicles like this sit dead flat through corners and even though this has four wheel steering to give it that extra bit of agility through corners and better turn in, they haven't gone down the path of that. They still want this to retain the feel of a bigger vehicle and if you make it sort of dead flat, it just makes it artificial and it removes all the steering feel and the feedback that you would normally get with a vehicle like this, so I'm glad they've landed where they have here. So just on the drive modes, you've got B for Bentley, Comfort, Individual and Sport. Sport mode is linked to the Akrapovic exhaust if it is optioned. That exhaust titanium will save you around 12kg in weight, so it does come with a slight weight benefit, but the biggest benefit of all is how it sounds and if I dial this over to Sport now and we just snap back through a couple of gears, you'll get pops on downshifts. You get little cracks and pops as you go on and off the throttle and it's unlike any other Bentley product I've heard before. They really want to give this the aggression and that feel behind the wheel. Just the crackles and pops there on the overrun is just very, very unlike Bentley. So I think they've given the buyer of this vehicle the option to really make it sound aggressive and even at low speeds, they've just put it into that little window there where it just sounds so good when it's moving at low speeds. So it's not a product that only sounds good at higher speeds, it really just delivers that emotional experience regardless of how hard you want to be pushing it. Now in addition to those things as well, they've made some changes to how firm the ride is. So this is 15% stiffer than the previous Bentayga and that is simply to give this just a bit more sportiness behind the wheel. And to be honest, it doesn't really make that much of a difference. Yes, it is 15% firmer but it's not as if the Bentayga was ever too firm or too soft. They really have done a great job here with the air suspension and the adaptive damping to give this just a consistent feel and just the feeling that you're driving a Bentley that has sporty intentions to it as well. The only criticism I can draw from this is probably a bit of turbo lag at low speeds. They've filled that turbo lag gap in the plug-in hybrid models with the electric drivetrain, whereas here, it doesn't have any of that stuff. So for example, when you're doing 65 miles an hour and you basically then just go for the throttle, it has to kick down and there's just a little bit of lag before it actually gets anything done and that is because you've got a torque converter eight-speed automatic and as a result of that, it can be a little lazier but you do get the benefits of the drive experience. It no longer feels like it's sort of slipping through gears and having to have that sort of elastic feeling that normally comes with a dual-clutch transmission. So that has been your first look at the new Bentley Bentayga Speed. This will be coming to Australia next year. We still don't know pricing for the Australian market but it is probably going to cost a pretty penny and rightfully so, this is a car that you can completely customise to your own desire. You can make it look and feel exactly how you want to make it look and feel and I think that is just a privilege that perhaps you can't get with some other brands. When you think about it, Bentley did create this craze with SUVs that are luxury after Bentayga came out, it was Urus, Pura Sangue, you had all of those luxury brands really start going to town with these, arguably Range Rover was first but these guys were a close second when it came to these luxury fields. So they've continued that tradition, it drives really nicely, I'm keen to get it back to the Proving Ground, see if the brakes are improved because that is one thing I didn't love about the previous generation of this car, the brakes just did not withstand the sort of punishment and it's not even really that much of a punishment but our limit handling laps at the Proving Ground, it was just sort of giving up and lots of smoke and all that sort of stuff. So hopefully that has been improved here with the Carbon Ceramic package. Now let me know what you reckon, Bentley Bentayga Speed, have you got any questions, anything you want to know, let me know in the comments section below, if you haven't done so already subscribe to the channel and press the bell icon but until next time, take it easy.