The NEW Bentley Continental GT W12 Review - The Best Grand Tourer Ever?

What is

grand

tourism? Well, it is a very old concept but also simple. You see, a

grand

tourer

is designed to be the kind of car that's as good at taking you and your family to the Amalfi Coast as it is at cruising around. The stelvio pass is a very simple idea but not very easy to execute. To be a true grand

tourer

, a car has to combine a host of often contradictory qualities. It should have luxury, speed, handling and refinement, road presence but also class. It's a very, very difficult thing to do well, but it's important to understand what a grantor is when a company goes and puts those words in the name of their car.

This is the new Bentley Continental GT and because it's all new, let's go for it. To give it a very thorough

review

, I will look at the exterior, the interior, then on the road, the engine chassis and finally see if they can all come together into a harmonious package because that is what it will take to achieve this. This is what Bentley claims is the world's

best

grand tourer. In case you're thinking that since I've been given a 207 mile per hour palace over the weekend then I'm going to be careful with the Bentley, you're sorely mistaken.

You see, I n

ever

liked the old Continental GT, it was a strange car, it looked too soft and wobbly, it was too heavy to be a sports car, it was too narrow to be luxurious and, worst of all, footballers bought them now, To be fair, I've n

ever

actually driven one, but it was never the car I wanted. The transformation of the new Continental GT reminds me of the scene you often see in a movie where there is the scientist who we all know is actually Megan Fox with glasses on, but none of them. Her colleagues seem to be aware of the fact that she is one of the most beautiful women on the planet until she suddenly takes off her glasses and lets her hair down and they suddenly realize that they have been working with a playboy bunny. all the time.

It's a big car that there's no escaping, but it looks stunning in this beautiful shade of green and has real road presence. Somehow Bentley has managed to take this terrible modern design trend of oversized grilles and actually make it work, these headlights are simply art and if you didn't believe me, this is a big car, those wheels are 22 inches and in Comparison to my normal daily driver, a Honda S2000, admittedly it's a pretty small car, it's 8 inches wider, even the key feels pretty colossal, but there's definitely an advantage. Due to the sheer size of this thing, there are usable rear seats and, most impressively for anyone who has been in an Aston Martin, even the boot has usable space, meaning you can go out for more than a short weekend.

In it, not bad now, the hallmark of any old-school grand tourer always had the presence of a large-capacity multi-cylinder engine at the front and this one is no different: it is a six-liter twin-turbocharged W12 and has enough power to move along this two and a quarter ton slab of weight. leather and chrome, but with a starting price of one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, you'd expect it to be as luxurious on the inside as it was impressive on the outside, and boy does Bentley deliver, this is very nice, the specification is cricket ball red. leather with a liquid amber finish over gloss black, there is leather and chrome everywhere, many of the switches are familiar to anyone who has been in a recent audi or porsche, but there are many that really elevate it above the level of his VW companions. details like this diamond in diamond stitching the large amount of leather and the solid feel you get from the whole party element for many people is this rotating screen in the middle yes it's an almost £5000 option but the theater What it offers is It really is a great thing and it's little details like that that I think really make the Bentley stand out now if you didn't know it means you can have the screen hidden completely you can have the normal Porsche Audi screen with VW look or it could have a trio of very high quality dials which are a temperature gauge, a compass and, interestingly, a lap timer.

There are some drawbacks, although the almost seven thousand pound hi-fi name is sure to impress anyone who's never heard a big stereo before. To say it's bad, it's pretty decent and I like the fact that it lacks any kind of terribly sophisticated DSP mode, but it's just not worth the money they're asking for two or three grand. I'd say it's an essential dial-in option, but I can't help but think you're paying another three and a half thousand quid on top for the badge and the slightly nice grille which, by the way, isn't even replicated on the tweeters here if you want to hear a genuine mind.

Play the stereo and give my friend James a high-level call. He has some systems that will really tickle your soul. The beautiful gear lever down here, which is nice to hold, has evidently been designed by someone who has never had to use it because it is very, very easy when you go into reverse to accidentally park the car and that means that when you try to maneuver like you What I often do in these types of tests, you end up looking like a racer, this car is missing a spec piece, but What I know others have had is a wireless charger for their phone and that really should come as standard.

I think there's no excuse for no no in 2020. Unfortunately, although this cabin is full of leather, it also feels very hard. It doesn't have that kind of soft warm edge that old school Bentleys like the Brooklyn one I

review

ed have, it looks like it's going to last a million years but it's not as cozy, even the steering wheel is full of all these edges that they just feel kind of weird in your hand and your left leg is always stuck between this very sharp transmission tunnel and this weird pocket here looks useful and it's a nice surge tray and you can put your phone in there but you end up with your knee of getting caught between them and it's just not very comfortable and I noticed it after five minutes and I can't believe no one realized that a little extra padded leather would have solved the problem nicely and of course as you know when you It's about any car like this, all the luxury here doesn't come as standard, there is a list of options, now the rotating screen and stereo account for around 11k pounds between them, on top of that this car also has the essential drive of Mulliner.

Spec is an option that almost everyone uses and it really confuses me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it may be called a driving spec, but nothing in it really improves handling. You have the 22 inch wheels. Here you have the perforated leather roof with diamond and diamond stitching, then you have sport pedals and metal oil and fuel filler caps. The fuel filler cap doesn't even feel like real metal, so it's a disappointment that the package costs 10 grand and seems a bit pricey to me, but since it's so popular, you'll probably have to order your car with him and it's a shame that then you have urban and touring spec and the set between them costs around another £10,000 and they feature a lot of things that I don't really care about including the Bentley safeguard which is the name that Bentley hits that system that so many cars have now that I think has a 50-50 chance of causing an accident before saving it, but it does.

It has some useful things, it has night vision, it has a great front screen and a 360 degree camera which is really useful. There are also some more moderately priced options on this car, including the ambient lighting package and the seat comfort package, which is worth it because it includes the massage function and in this it is really useful. The same system does a very good job. which you'll find in something like a really brilliant audi sq7 now all of this brings the total price of the

bentley

to around £200,000 and i think it actually represents incredible value.

I know it may be hard to understand but I have driven some very expensive Audis that cost well, a little less than this, but this really feels like a lot more car next month. I have a ferrari gtc4 lusso on the way and although there are some key differences between this and the lusso it is a hundred and thirty thousand pounds more expensive than the

bentley

, unfortunately due to things a big part of this review was destined to happen. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I was supposed to start this at the factory on the team, where I was going to be able to show them how these cars are made, the amount of real craftsmanship that goes into them.

I had a reserved tour of the wooden room. I was going to see how this w12 engine is put together and unfortunately it all just can't happen one day, it will be and I promise you they will take you on an adventure but there is something about Bentley that I think elevates them beyond all their other peers from volkswagen is the amount of customization you can have with one of these cars and the amount of customization you can get to without having to do the special thing you know without having to go the route mso the route cue the bespoke ferrari route, if you don't believe me go to the Bentley configurator, it's one of the

best

and most in-depth I've seen, but I really think Aston Martin can compete in terms of standard options, maybe Rolls-Royce too, but not really.

I don't like rolls, I don't know why I just don't like them now. If this were a review based purely on the car's appearance, I'd already be giving it two emphatic tons of cool, but this isn't a Bentley that needs to drive well. it does it well too, it's complicated if all you want to know is if this Bentley is fast then it's a resounding yes, that six liter w12 makes about 630 horsepower and 900 newton meters or 660 pound-feet of torque . I've counted them, they're all there. This thing is seriously, incredibly supercar, incredibly fast. Nothing that heavy has any right to move down a road the way it does.

However, I think my audience is a little more nuanced. I think you all are a little more demanding like me. Fast is not enough, it's about the way the car talks to you, the way it interacts with you and that's where it gets very difficult. You would think that a six-liter twin-turbo W12 would have no problem making just over 600 horsepower. and that those turbos would really be a simple accompaniment, a bit of a starter, that they wouldn't really do much, they would be there for show more than anything else, after all, 14 years ago, Ferrari obtained this power naturally. aspirated engine of the same capacity, however, the Bentley I am sad to report on seems to have suffered from this recent illness that has been affecting so many other Audis and Porsche products.

There is quite a delay here. Now let me demonstrate this engine to you. out maximum torque from supposedly 1350 rpm I'm just shy of 2000 rpm I'm going to be even tighter in gear two thousand five hundred rpm doing 50 miles per hour in fourth gear so I'm in i I'm at half throttle, I'm not decelerating, so that I'm going to step on the accelerator now and there's a little bit and there's full power, that's a big delay, it's not at all bad for the audi sq7, but it's not far off now, I have no doubt. that someone right now is cracking their fingers and preparing a comment telling me I'm out of boost range even though it's pretty obvious from the specs that I'm not, so I'm going to do the test again and I'm going to do this in second gear at 30 miles per hour at three thousand five hundred three thousand five hundred revolutions in the car that goes six, so ready, foot down, now there is power, that is a big delay, it may seem very little, but if you are a real driver, Anyone who plays video games likely knows that a lag, which is the delay between you telling the computer that you've done something and the server on the other end recognizing that it's something significant, is measured in milliseconds and a bit more. 40 or 50, you know, a fraction of a second can really ruin game lag. 0.1 of a second can completely ruin a pleasant experience.

Now, 0.1 of a second for turbo lag would be nothing, but there's a lot more to this. That in itself would not be a problem. I was very surprised at how this road I expected to be more comfortable than it is now, of course you have the obligatory set of driving modes, there are relatively few of them. you have comfort, you have sport, you have Bentley and you have custom. I'm now driving in custom mode for a simple reason: so that you can hear a bit of the exhaust note, as with all modern cars, Bentley has had to tone down their exhausts, but I don't think like a jaguar like a Porsche like a Ferrari or a McLaren that have really suffered so much because I'm not sure I want a Bentley to be more vocal than this one.

You can hear him just talking in the background trying to do. some artificial farts and pops and things that are a little out of place for a car like this, but I'm not worried about not being able to hear the car, it creates a little problem that II get into real sports mode a little bit. ruin this car just like that, i know, i have said it for a lot of cars because it's true for a lot of cars, the only two modes you really need in this car are comfort and bentley, there is a difference between the two, it's not very big, but There is a difference now, the gearbox in this car is not the sharpest, but it is fast enough.

It is an eight-speed dual-clutch item. The reason it has dual clutch, I believe, is simply because this platform shares with the Porsche Panamera the eight speeds in it. 911 I don't like it very much. It may be a different unit but it works well here. Because in a Bentley I don't worry too much about quick gear changes, I want them smooth and at all times they are really smooth, even when you do them a little faster they are still very, very well judged and this car in the city is fine. I have driven some cars recently that are almost lethal at low speeds because there is a huge delay when it comes to exiting our junctions, this is not a problem as a city cruiser judges quite well unfortunately and remembers what it was about speaking at the beginning.

From this video, building a grand tourer involves trying to combine a lot of opposing concepts. Unfortunately, modern people seem to think that physics is something that doesn't really apply to the products they buy, because I'm sure. Everyone who buys a Continental GT expects it to be nice, smooth, quiet, comfortable and smooth, but they also wanted to be able to have an amazing time at the Nurburgring and that's not something you're going to be able to achieve at the same time. It's never going to happen, so Bentley have had to make concessions and I personally feel they have gained too much on the sporting side.

There is trepidation in the handling of this car. There is a real firmness that is always there. The good news is. that this car is evidently extremely rigid there are no rivulets there are no rattles there are no squeaks it is still a very nice cabin of course there is a decent amount of raw tires at times from those 315 section tires but it is not as bad as Otherwise it is You may have double glazing here too which helps a little and for motorway trips this is a very very good car, the slightly awkward shape of which doesn't help but otherwise it's a decent car and what is amazing it's quite different some of the audis i've driven recently there's a lot going on ahead of them to try and make this engine more palatable for the 2020 world but they've achieved one thing over the course of this test almost 400 miles .

I averaged 26 miles per gallon driving to Oxford yesterday, just barely getting to 30. For a 12 cylinder, 2.3 ton, 600 plus horsepower car, that's amazing, absolutely amazing, pure witchcraft. I know there are all kinds of things happening up ahead, like cylinders. deactivation and so on, but I didn't notice any of that and that's notable. I have some experience in cars powered by the v8 which is also an option on the conti gt most recently on the audi rs6 and that doesn't really do any better on fuel so to be honest if you're going to opt For a conti I'd probably go straight for the w12 so now I honestly shouldn't be able to do that, it's a surprising change of pace.

It's ridiculous, but being able to do that concessions have been made when you back the car up, it's not. I'm not saying it's a hyper-alert nervous beast like a Ferrari F12, far from it, and if you look at the car. name and the name is important,

continental

gt, if you want something that will take you from here to the stelvio pass, it is an excellent car, really one of the best, especially on european asphalt, which tends to be a little better than ours and I. I will admit that this is not really the right road to test a conti gt, but I don't want to test this car on the a1 as it would be boring.

I've put a couple hundred miles on the highway in this car and it's fine. the stereo as i said its ok i love playing with the screen the satnav is good the hud is clear for doing everyday things this is a really very good car to drive though the main thing to keep in mind What counts is the grand scale of I'm taking this whole path, every part of it, and the main thing I hope now is that no one else on this path has a condition or, if they do, that they go down the same path as me.

Now I really should talk about public perception because when you buy an expensive car like this, certainly in the UK it's important to a lot of people and I'm pleased to say that everyone loves the Bentley. I couldn't believe it everywhere. I parked this car, people were commenting that my grandmother saw it and she's the kind of person who doesn't really know what the Internet is or what I do on it, reasonably convinced, thinks I'm a gigolo, not entirely sure . She probably thinks that's why there are so many different cars in the driveway all the time, but even she thought it was a beautiful car, but that doesn't happen.

My neighbors love it. My friends love it. Random strangers comment on it, especially that painting, which I believe. its great now i had a

continental

gt booked previously as i mentioned and that was going to be a very different spec, in fact the car i was supposed to buy was the one Mr JW recently reviewed which had a red exterior like a cricket ball I have to say I'm actually quite happy I got this car because I don't think that one had the name and this one is spectacular, it's the right color for a Bentley, the road presence this thing has is absolutely absolute. amazing it's so overbearing yet elegant they really have worked miracles with that style the fact that i'm even interested in the conti gt is a miracle so other things to note one problem with this car that is not exclusive to the conti gt is because that exhaust is so quiet, a bit like the audi rs3 I had a couple of years ago, if you're trying to shift gears yourself, which I do sometimes, you can't tell when you really need to shift, that's a problem if you've made.

Roll down the window, roll up the window is fine because you can hear it really well and it's a pretty good gear change. The paddles are okay, although not the best, but to be fair, in a Bentley you want to let it change its own gear. just do it, it has so much power that it really does and in fact the harder you drive it the better the suspension gets which is very frustrating because most of the time you don't drive a car that hard but this is the price to pay to have it. some kind of body control on a 2.3 ton car, it has the 48 volt active anti-roll system that has appeared on several Audi and Porsche products lately and it works very well, in fact the custom mode is strange because it actually It doesn't have much. customization available, you've got engine and gearbox, you've got steering and suspension, that's it, I would have thought there would be a bit more, but really, if all this car had available was Bentley mode, it would be fine, it would be absolutely fine , let me show you what the second gear does because it's ridiculous, come on give me a second type, also for some reason I can't understand it's only doing 10 per gallon now. instead of 30.

Did you hear that he does it from time to time? I think what's happening is that he still wants to change and I'm pushing almost at the same time as him and that's why he says wow, it's a bit, it's getting on. it's giggles in a twist, i think the bentley continental gt w12 is a perfect car no, it's a very very good car yes let's conclude, let's sum things up now, i talked before about how each individual element looks and then the key is how they come together and that's where the continental gt really stumbles because let's take that engine, let's look at it in isolation, it has a lot of power, ample performance, yes there is some lag, some turbo lag, it's not unusual in that department and for a great continental cruiser car.

I could forgive those features completely, the old Brooklyn wasn't really any different and it suited that car perfectly, the chassis is a little firmer than I'd probably like, but it lets you go down a lane in a way it probably shouldn't. being able to do it in something that is heavy in itself, that's fine, but in my opinion, that chassis deserves to be paired with an engine that is much more responsive or, looking at it from the other side, and that engine needs to be paired with something that is a little softer, a little more luxurious, if for some reason Bentley decides to lend me another press card, I would like to get the flying spur because that's the car that should be configured a little softer, that's the sedan version of this. and in a way it is the replacement for the outgoing zan moles and I think that that car will be the one in which all the elements come together and make sense.

I can't blame Bentley for building the continental gt this way. I'm pretty. I'm sure they are constantly frustrated by all those people who expect a 2.3 tonne car to be as agile and sporty as a 911 and the simple fact is that I could keep up with the 911 on those back roads easily. You'd need a proper card carrying a supercar like a McLaren to walk away from this thing and that's just crazy. Bentley hasn't ignored physics that much. What they have done is sneak into his house in the middle of the night and kidnap him. They took him to a disused warehouse on the outskirts of town, tied him to a chair, shined a flashlight in his face and beat him a little until he did everything they say.

It's really quite notable where the Conti GT scores so highly is in practicality. Which it has, which in this segment is not a given, the Ferrari GTC4 Lusso is probably the only thing that really stands toe to toe with it and is something really special for me. I must be getting older because I'd happily trade a bit of that skill and agility for a bit more comfort, but hey, it's not a bad package, if I'm completely honest, would I still have one? Not yet, in case it doesn't blame you, thanks for watching, like it. Comment below, subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you next time, bye.