Bentley Continental GT Speed: Getting Even Faster - Sports Cars

SHOOTING A CAR AT A SPEED OVER 300 km / h is always interesting. Especially if you are not driving a Formula XNUMX, but a vehicle designed for travel, strong, even very strong, where you can, but at the same time with maximum comfort. In addition, we were not on the Monza direct, but on the runway of a German airport north of Berlin, a small facility that is serviced by a private Falcon and a Russian pilot who has moved to Germany and is flying around the world. Heavy loads aboard the XNUMX's aircraft. Ilyushin dry cargo ship. And then the Bentley technicians, having installed photocells to determine the maximum speed, left a significant part of the straight line so that we could brake without burning the discs or leaving the track. After all, they still deal with journalists ...

The first attempt failed, I dialed 290. But other colleagues do about the same. I need more momentum. So, instead of starting where indicated, I slip onto my back and put the wheels almost on the grass to get a hundred meters of the start. Turn down the throttle, no help, such as those launch controls that bring happiness in some real-world sports, this time 12 cylinders on W, he no doubt shifts gears even faster and we knock out the photocells with a good dry speed of 302 km / h.

Everyone, everyone is happy GT Speed proves that, despite two tons and a broken mass, it accelerates like a dragster and touches (and catches up) speed unthinkable in a luxury car. Because we must not forget that we are still in the same place. Bentley, which, as you can see, costs 172 thousand euros, but which, in addition to the price, was born with the main vocation to be an object of luxury, as required by the English tradition. Yet it also gives happy buyers a sense of power. IN engine The twelve-cylinder engine of the now familiar British brand was in the hands of the Germans.

There is an anecdote about this beast, which is worth remembering also because no one has ever denied it. In fact, they say that Ferdinand Piech, the undisputed head of the Volkswagen concern, flew to the UK after buying Bentley in 2003, including Crew, with special package. Life-size wooden mock-up of this new twelve-cylinder engine with the original W-architecture, i.e. two V-shaped rows intersecting each other. One of his ideas is an innovative engine that is half the length and width of a traditional twelve-cylinder, which, moreover, resembles the western part of the city where Volkswagen was born and is still its headquarters, Wolfsburg. Before getting his hands on the Bentley, Piech wanted to be sure of one thing: the engine would fit right into the hood of British cars, which he didn't really appreciate about traditional engines. The W12 glided perfectly inside the bonnet and has since become the "engine of the Bentley", although downsizing is said to predominate, there may be surprises in this regard in the future, as in the case of Aston Martin. However, the W12 has evolved over ten years, gradually gaining strength: for a restyled Continental in this test he gained another 25 hp, thus reaching an impressive 625 at 6.000 rpm. This should accelerate it to 330 km / h and make it burn zero percent in 4,2 seconds. Considering, as we expected, Continental speed GT With a weight of 2.320 kg of beauty, the work that W12 is called upon is not a joke. Generally I am an amateur playful Quite frankly, easier, and this type of car has always seemed like a stretch to me. Because it is always difficult to find a balance between luxury and sportiness, it is difficult to combine exaggerated performance and yacht interior. Today, when electronics are applied to ... screws, the task is simpler, the available technology allows for calibration. steering, suspensions and engine response based on parameters more or less dedicated to comfort or sportiness.

Anyway, so that we can prove with our own eyes that GT Speed ​​lives up to its name, on the runway of a small airport, in addition to a place to accelerate the car to the maximum speed that can be reached there, Bentley employees have placed rows of pins on the left and right. to entertain us with a little slalom and braking to the limit. The Continental GT Speed ​​has shown unexpected agility, even if the suspicion still lingers that the finger spacing, which always seems short when driving, has been calculated with millimeter precision so as not to disfigure the beast. What's unusual is braking... I already discs in steel they do an excellent job. But ... you have the ability to mount disks carboceramics "Only" 10 thousand euros more expensive: taking into account price a car is more than a reasonable choice.

To truly understand what it means to brake using carbon ceramic, technicians Bentley they forced us to carry out the most classic tests, without photocells and detection systems, but with only two cars that accelerate to 200 km / h and then brake together. When we nailed the nail, a steel rim Bentley stopped three cars ahead of us with carbon ceramic. In short, there is a lot of energy, even if after you leave the airport and drive along a quiet German provincial road, you drop your Bentley on undercut Maximum comfort, we were able to fully appreciate what this price list of 171 thousand euros means. In two, you really travel to the top: i points the best you can imagine, after the Poltrona Frau of our house, the driving position is excellent, musical reproduction and air conditioner flawless. Once in Berlin, meet the photographer to see the latest footage around the Olympic Stadium. Fashion week makes itself felt, the streets are a tangle of cars, you move like snails. Idea to queue W12 it's creepy, but still doesn't seem to suffer at all. But the gaze rushes to the instruments, to the thermometers. Bentley easily digested ignoble deceleration, as if it had a four-cylinder turbodiesel. Wonders of electronics and design. We know that today it is almost impossible to see a supercar suffering from overheating, however, due to the simple fact that you grew up among sports cars, if you found yourself following a truck for several kilometers, you had to stop and let everything cool down. Well, in short, it always seems surprising there that the 600 hp engines. do not turn against the driver when driving at a speed of thirty per hour!

One more word about interiorthat are really lovely. The British, when they were the owners of their luxury brands (remember, Rolls-Royce fell into the hands of the Germans BMW), were strange people: they spent thousands of pounds on skin, rosehip root and precious woods to make the cabin look like a queen's living room. And then they saved on mechanical parts, on secondary controls, often clumsy and of modest materials. Not to mention mechanical reliability: with machines of outrageous displacement, but relatively not very powerful, you had to handle with white gloves, if you tried to speed up or climb on them, this was a problem.

Of course history Bentley slightly different, the sporting vocation was always in check, even if the participants (it seems, the definition was given by Enzo Ferrari) said that they were trucks that went like F1 ... Now, with German meticulousness, everything is clear, there are no spare solutions, even a few plastic parts are of high quality and mostly chrome. Not to mention the mechanical excellence of the W12 coupled with Automatic transmission that if you don't feel like fiddling with the blades (also because you are not picking up speed, forget about the splash of Ferrari or Porsche vaccinations), it changes gears decisively and quickly, both uphill and downhill. And what even on the road always gives an exciting swiftness, lightning-fast overtaking, exaggerated shooting, there is always a lot couplewhichever gear you are in. IN steeringwhich we thought has improved and which I refine as the speed increases, and suspensions they don't fight to keep the mass Continental. The fact that when cornering (at least the ones we encountered in Germany, it will be different on the track), it goes quickly and maintains a trajectory like a well-shooting billiard ball, helps - and feels - thanks to a very effective four-wheel drive.

In short, this new version Continental speed GT it remains a very specific product that is difficult to classify: it goes very fast without being a Ferrari or Lambo, it is very comfortable without being a Maserati, and it is very noticeable. Driving, of course, will not go unnoticed, even if you choose the less vibrant shades of reds on these pages. The question is, is it worth all the Euros required. A definite answer is impossible, we are always there, let's return to the original question: does it make sense to combine luxury and sportiness, an exaggerated first and an impudent second? Probably yes, because no one else wants playful rear splitter at this level performance e price... Of course, this will never be an EVO car, even if one day they only make it with rear-wheel drive. The only concern for those who buy it, if only because of the frequency of supply it forces, is consumption: 5-6 km on XNUMX liters of fuel. And without exaggeration.