Bentley Continental GTC V8 S Review | Four reasons to buy one

The Bentayga SUV might be Bentley's big seller, but it's this car, the Continental GT, that absolutely epitomises the brand and represents its centre of gravity. It's the car without which modern Bentley simply wouldn't exist, and it's also, for most people's money, and it is an awful lot of money, the best GT car you can buy. There are faster, sportier rivals, not least Ferrari's Rapid Roma, and thanks to 911 Turbo S, you can buy a much faster car for less money. But if you're after the ultimate combination of all-weather performance, hand-stitched luxury and outrageous comfort, nothing hits quite like a Continental GT. But to justify a price tag of a quarter of a million pounds, it's not enough for a car to be merely good, is it? It needs to be something truly extraordinary. So here they are, the four things we absolutely love about Bentley's Continental GT V8 S Convertible, and the one slightly niggly thing that if we could, we'd change. Bentley's always made all the right noises about electrification. After all, its cars are already big and heavy and expensive, and with electric, that's kind of got to be the case. In terms of the luxury three British brands, Rolls-Royce, Aston and Bentley, it's kind of somewhere in the middle, isn't it? Ahead of Aston on plug-in hybrids, but somewhere behind Rolls, who've jumped straight in with the all-electric Spectre. Now, the Continental GT is going hybrid. We know that much. So the W12 engine was recently retired. That was the flagship motor in this car, and that can't carry on. Bentley's going to replace it with a combination of V8 power and an electric module to give it the kind of crazy power that a Bentley flagship demands. But there's absolutely nothing electrified about this car, the 542 brake horsepower Continental GT V8 S. And that brawny old-school engine is absolutely fundamental to its appeal. So for as long as this third-generation Continental GT has been on sale, there's really been two powertrain options. You've got the W12 and this, the twin-turbo V8. Now, the W12 is obviously the faster engine. That had the performance advantage on paper, but that motor never quite sounded as good as its cylinder's count would suggest. When that made this engine, the V8, really the one to go for, it sits a little bit lighter in the nose and it certainly pulls a little harder at the heartstrings. But really, the great Bentleys are defined by a duality. This ability to bring together luxury and refinement on one hand with incredible sportiness on the other into one package. And the V8 S powertrain really epitomises that. So it's the four-litre V8 engine and an eight-speed twin-clutch gearbox. And really, it's all about the drive mode. So you've got custom, you've got comfort, Bentley and sport. And in Bentley or comfort, really the powertrain backs right off. So the upshifts come just after takeover, the gear shifts themselves are buttery smooth. And this 2.3-tonne car just kind of wafts along on a wall of torque. And on the motorway, you're getting like 26, 27mpg. And it's only really when you flex your toe just to get up to speed that you're reminded that you're not actually driving an EV. It's kind of that quiet and that refined. And yet, when you find yourself on a decent stretch of road, click down to sport and the S's standard sports exhaust kind of really wakes up the engine. And suddenly, she's a real entertainer. So it's still all about torque. It's not a rev monster of an engine. It's all done and by what? 6,500rpm. And it's interesting, the first time you get on the paddles and start shifting yourself, you tend to come down at least one too many gears. So kind of second gears for hairpins and third gear for sweepers. But if you leave it in auto in sport, you kind of learn how best to drive the car because the gearbox will hang on to gears and come down, right down in rpm and then drive out of corners on the torque. Start doing that and it absolutely flies. So 542hp, 0-60 in just over four seconds. But on the road, it always feels monstrously quick whenever you get the space to let it go. And the gearbox is just impeccably behaved. The shifts are so smooth and some people might want a bit more drama, you know, when you're coming down the box like bang, bang, bang. There's none of that in this. It's all in a velvet glove, but it just means it never interrupts the acceleration or the driving experience. And then, of course, the secret weapon, certainly as a year-round GT, is the four-wheel drive system. I mean, the grip laterally because of the tyre footprint on the tarmac and then under acceleration is just massive. Traction is just total in the dry and even in the wet, bringing on wheelspin, it just doesn't happen. You can pull out onto a motorway, get your foot down and just fly up to speed. Does that make it less involving because you don't have to think as much? Maybe. In cars like a DB12 or a Roma, you're going to have to be a bit more careful deploying the power in bad weather, but it just makes this thing such a total all-rounder and just incredibly rapid, whatever's going on weather-wise. Cars like this are all about enjoying yourself. They're about on-tap automotive hedonism. It's about the sun on your face and that V8 roar all up in your ears. And that's why, for me, I think the Continental GT is epitomised by the convertible. This is the sort of ultimate version of it. Allow me to explain why. With a few exceptions, and mostly we're looking at you here, McLaren, with your carbon-fibre chassis, going convertible is a decision you make with your heart, not your head. You're likely going to have to accept an increase in weight, a reduction in stiffness, more noise and, potentially, as is the case here, less luggage space. With cars like Porsche's Cayman and Boxster, not to mention the BMW M4, it's always a really tough call, but you'd likely take the tintop every single time. They are, after all, sports cars and you really want to experience them at their very sharpest. The Continental GT is different. It almost feels like it was designed as a convertible first and a coupe second. That's how comfortable it feels as a convertible experience. The roof itself is nice. It's beautifully insulated. The car's really quiet with the roof up, but it'll come down in under 20 seconds and you can do it at up to 30 miles an hour. It's so refined in here. You can chat away to your passenger at 70 miles an hour, you can still hear Radio 4 at 80 miles an hour and you can still hear yourself think the wrong side of 100 miles an hour. It really is a year-round convertible. That four-wheel-drive powertrain means it's a 365-day-a-year car, so you've got this heavily-raced screen that gives you plenty of shelter. You've got the air scarf blowing warm air on the back of your neck, heated seats, heated armrests, heated wheel, so heavy frosts, even a bit of light rain doesn't stop playing this thing. It's just part of the experience. There's a slightly nostalgic element to it. It feels like tipping a hat to the glory days of motoring and the convertible is absolutely a part of that. There are a few trade-offs. There's a bit less space in the back and the boot is ever so slightly smaller. You're going to pay more for the car, obviously, and it's slightly heavier, but it's all the better for hearing that V8 do its thing. While the exhaust is pretty muted in comfort or custom or Bentley, when you get it into sport with the roof down and get yourself out onto a road worth driving, it just makes the experience that much more special. The Continental GT is not a new car. It's been on sale since 2018 and an update is imminent, and yet the interior remains this Bentley's crowning glory. This is effectively the embodiment of the company's unique position as a luxury brand backed by a vast VW group. From the artisan, Bentley-sided equation, we get the fine materials, handcrafted and finished with love, and from the group, you get an infotainment system, an engineering that just works. If I had a pound for every letter to the car magazine letters page moaning about touchscreens, well, I could pretty much afford a new Continental GT, but there are touchscreens and there are touchscreens. Actually, this car's combination of a really good screen and plenty of real physical controls is actually pretty inspired. There's actual physical controls for a lot of the climate control functions like temperature and fan speed, heated seats, all of that kind of stuff. Then the great big drive mode controller, which soon becomes second nature. When you do need to go for the touchscreen, it's really good. It's really responsive. There's a dial rotary for going up and down long lists because that's just tedious on a normal touchscreen. Then you've got the Continental GT interior's pièce de résistance, that £5,000 rotating display option. It really is a touch of genius. All of your infotainment touchscreen functions are there when you need them, but when you want to put it all away, press the button and you've got either three analogue dials or just clean dashboard. While that may not sound like a big deal, it actually makes a huge difference. It feeds into that slightly nostalgic vibe of the car. On long nighttime journeys, just being able to tone down the amount of light in the cockpit and declutter it just really makes a difference. The quality of the cabin of this interior has always been the Continental GT's secret weapon. It would wipe the floor with Aston Martin's DB11 time after time. It's still absolutely gorgeous in here. It looks great, it feels great, it smells great. I wish you could smell it. The fusion of the touchscreens with the physical controls is just really nicely judged. The only criticisms are really what, six, seven years on or some slightly dated graphics to some of the screens. I guess maybe the driver assist systems, there's not a lot on here. We've got collision detection and we've got adaptive cruise control, but a Bentley should be one of the smartest things on the road and ideally a bit smarter than you. It isn't the case, it's slightly dated stuff and it does get caught out by all the classics. Going around a sweeping bend with a lay-by on the side and parked cars, it thinks they're in the way and throws up a collision warning. Similar when someone's turning left in front of you, you know they're going to get out of the way but the car can't work it out. That doesn't feel £250,000 appropriate, but everything else about this space does. It is glorious. Way, way back, the great philosopher James May made a great point about suspension stiffness on performance cars. He observed that when you consider the amount of time you spend trundling a straight line, usually on bumpy roads, versus the time you spend actually wanging around corners, it's an equation skewed massively in favour of straight lines. So why fit rock-hard springs and dampers? Honestly, driving this thing in comfort is like slipping into a hot bath. It is unbelievably cosseting. It's a combination of things, isn't it? It's the super stiff monocoque but then you've got adaptive suspension, air suspension and the 48-volt electric roll control which works minor miracles in the corners. It all just comes together to smother any bumps or potholes that might be in the road. So even knackered British B-roads just become liquid, glassy smooth. On long motorway journeys, it just takes all of the sting out of driving a really, really long way. And then tighten it up in sport mode and it brings the car lower to the ground, firms everything up, really brings out the body control. I mean, all of the roll disappears and it's using every trick in the book to turn this big 2.3-tonne car into something you can just hurl round corners. I mean, yeah, the ride quality goes slightly out the window in sport but there's a surprising amount of feel and feedback coming up through the road. You know exactly where you stand in terms of the grip levels front and rear and it just means in combination, certainly when you put it in Bentley mode which is that kind of halfway house and happy medium, you've still got the refinement in the chassis to take the edges off the bumps but there is absolutely nothing difficult about driving this thing 500 miles. I brought it back from Scotland a couple of weeks ago, 500 and something miles, eight, nine hours on some amazing Scottish roads, it was just an absolute breeze. Charging past logging trucks and getting stuck into some amazing corners, like a true sports car. So really my only gripe with the V8 S is that it doesn't go quite far enough. There are two versions of the Continental GT that let us know that this car can let its hair down and have a really good time. There was the outrageous Pikes Peak hill climb car which I was fortunate enough to drive and then there was the W12 Speed which borrowed quite a bit of tech from the hill climb Pikes Peak car and was also genuinely interested in having a really good time pretty much all of the time. Okay so look, I get it, I know how model ranges work, we can't have the V8 S threatening the mighty W12 Speed but surely it could be a kind of halfway house, almost like the 911 GTS to the W12 GT3. The other V8 Continental GT options like the Azure, they're all about well-being and luxury dialed right up and it can't be right that this car, the S, has exactly the same chassis setup as those. No, something badged S but a bit more playful and with a bit more attitude, that would be pretty special. And while we're in the business of making this V8 S absolutely perfect, could we just have a little bit more power? Now I know asking for more when you've already got 542 horsepower might be seen as a little bit greedy but we know this engine can do it. So this 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, you'll find it in all sorts of VW Group cars, Porsche's Cayenne Coupe Turbo GT. Now in that thing we're good for nearly 650 horsepower so there's plenty of headroom to let the V8 S just stretch its legs a little bit more. The engine can do it, we know the chassis and the four-wheel drive powertrain can handle it and as uncomfortably quick electric cars spread like wildfire, surely the Bentley badge deserves a comfortable margin of straight-line superiority. It can't be right can it that a £65,000 Hyundai Ioniq 5N goes 0-62mph in 3.4 seconds, half a second quicker than this car. And nor should we forget that Aston's new DB12 is good for 670 horsepower. Twist that dial into sport, get yourself on a road worth driving and all of that talk about not a proper driver's car stuff, you can get in the sea. In so many ways the Continental GT V8 S hasn't aged a day. It's so beautifully engineered, realised and executed as to feel all but timeless. But an S with a slug more power, a more rear-biased character and a chassis set up in sport mode to let it battle the latest generation of GTs from Aston and Ferrari, all of that without compromising any of the comfort that makes this car such an incredible big distance machine, that would be a car to put the V8 S Conti-GT right back on top of the class it's come to define. So come on crew, how about it?