Review: Bentley Continental GT Speed Hybrid

Somehow the idea of the grand tour prevails. Its roots may lie in the aristocratic 17th and 18th century campaign for self-improvement, but we know it better as a two-letter abbreviation affixed to the rump of an elegant car: Gran Turismo. Ettore Bugatti dismissed his great rival Bentley’s early efforts as fast lorries, but the name is synonymous with a lavish and borderline hedonistic attitude to life.

Since its arrival in 2003, the Continental GT has set the bewinged nameplate on a lucrative new trajectory. With almost 100,000 cars sold, the stakes are high. So this latest incarnation doesn’t mess too much with the postmodern aesthetic. As per Ettore’s waspish observation, a century on from Bentley’s Le Mans 24 hours-winning behemoth, the Continental coupe and convertible retain a certain heft.

It was actually 1952’s R-Type Continental that provided the design inspiration, and this fourth-generation car maintains the strident grille, elongated bonnet, and the flamboyant sweep of the rear fenders. A strong sense of opulence is underpinned by a steely commitment to high performance.

The proportions remain intact, but some of the details have been changed. The headlights now feature a questionable horizontal “eyebrow,” with a dazzling crystal-cut diamond effect on the top, and matrix lamps that incorporate 120 separate LED elements. Crystal and diamond in one set of headlights is no mean feat.

At the rear, the bumper, taillights, trunk lid, and exhaust pipes have all been redesigned. The trunk lid is also more aerodynamic in form to obviate the need for a spoiler while still delivering the appropriate levels of downforce. A form as voluptuous as this needs big wheels to do its best work—and the Continental GT Speed gets new 22-inch rims with a “turbine” effect. It’s all very dashing.

Hybrid, With EV Mode

Photograph: Bentley Motors

But the real juice here is in how Bentley has amplified the technology story. Out goes the stentorian old combustion W-12, in comes an all-new powertrain—an Ultra Performance Hybrid, in Bentley parlance.

It combines a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 that’s good for 584 bhp with an electric motor that adds a further 187 bhp. That means a peak system output of 771 bhp, 738 lb ft of torque, and enough wallop to deliver a top speed of 208 mph (335km/h) and a 0-60 time of 3.1 seconds. These are heady numbers for a car that was always heavy but now weighs an athletic human under 2.5 metric tons. Sheesh.

Incidentally, this also makes the Continental GT Speed the most powerful production car in Bentley’s long history.

Happily, the new car is more nuanced in how it deploys its firepower. It really does have a magnificent and carefully engineered bandwidth. While Bentley prepares an all-new pure-electric car—that’s due in 2026—the hybrid takes on a greater significance than was initially forecast. “The plug-in hybrid was viewed as a transitional vehicle,” Bentley says, “but is playing a bigger role now because of changing consumer habits.”

To paraphrase, high-net-worth individuals with multicar garages aren’t especially enamored of high-end EVs, regardless of how extreme their performance might be. Ferrari’s long-awaited BEV lands in 2025; perhaps that’ll be the one that finally moves the needle.

Photograph: Bentley Motors

The Continental GT Speed, which borrows liberally from stablemate Porsche, certainly makes a case for the intelligent hybrid as a bridge to that as-yet-unrealized electric future. It’s very effective in EV mode, its inherently refined nature assuming an extra dimension when running silently. It can cover up to 50 miles if driven sympathetically this way, or at speeds up to 87 mph and 75 percent throttle applications.

There’s also an electric boost mode, and one that optimizes the regenerative braking, but the most relevant one is “charge” mode, during which the combustion engine drives the wheels and charges the 25.9-kWh battery simultaneously.

On our test route we were able to keep the battery topped up very satisfactorily, to the extent that you could leave, say, Wilmslow in Cheshire in the UK (a traditional Bentley and premiership football hunting ground) with zero battery and arrive in London 200 miles later with ample energy for a zero-emission commute to Mayfair. As chief engineer Steve Jones admits, the prospect of plugging your Bentley into a charger doesn’t exactly fit with customer aspirations. Should they—or anyone on the payroll—do so, the GT Speed can be fully charged in two and three-quarter hours, with 11 kW peak charging power.

Agile and Indomitable

Photograph: Bentley Motors

Aside from the clever new powertrain, the Continental’s rep as an unparalleled, yep, grand turismo is enhanced by a handful of other changes. It’s all-wheel drive, as before, has an active rear axle, an active anti-roll system, an electronic limited slip differential, and torque vectoring front to rear and across the axles.

There’s also a reconfigured traction control setup and a new dual-valve damper system with dual-chamber air springs. This broadens the territory between soft and firm and delivers improved body control when you’re tapping into all that performance. The ride quality is generally more nuanced. The battery’s location under the trunk floor might pump up the weight, but a welcome byproduct is its improved distribution.

The upshot is a car that covers ground in a way that manages to be both agile and indomitable, the extra e-boost delivering torque infill in the low and medium range, while the combustion engine punches harder than ever as the revs pile on.

It also sounds mighty, a key Bentley USP that’s preserved without recourse to artificial enhancement. There’s a strong regen effect during braking, to the extent that you scarcely trouble the friction brakes at normal speeds. But when you do lean on them, the handover between the newfangled software and the old-school hardware isn’t quite as seamless as it might be. It just needs a bit of finessing. Bentley says it’s working on it.

The GT Speed also receives a new 400-volt electrical architecture, bringing with it the latest infotainment and driver assistance systems. Bentley claims that it’s the most advanced car in the luxury space, which is a bold assertion given the efforts BMW and Mercedes are going to.

Spa on Wheels

Intelligent Park Assist offers self-parking, and the My Bentley App Studio ensures that various music, video, gaming and charging apps can be downloaded directly to the car’s infotainment system independent of a smartphone. The clever rotating central display remains as entertaining as ever, and while there’s lots of wonderfully tactile switchgear, some of the buttons feel less impressive. There are also switch blanks in the coupe where the GTC’s soft-top buttons are located. They should stick something else in that space.

The Continental GT Speed also does a useful impression of a spa retreat. The air conditioning system now includes air ionizers, a new particulate filter, and can monitor the air quality in- and outside the car. It also synchronizes with the satellite navigation and registers when the air quality might be sub-optimal (inside a tunnel, for example.) There's even a “Wellness seat” as an option, too.

Bentleys tend to be driven by audiophiles, the best of the three available sound systems a 2,200-watt Naim setup that packs 19 speakers into the body and hides active bass transducers in the front seats. Unless our ears are deceiving us, we reckon this is the finest audio system in the automotive world.

Naturally, none of this comes cheap. Prices for the Continental GT Speed start at $303,000 (£286,000 in the UK), but a fair-to-moderate immersion in the Mulliner personalization department could send that rocketing toward, and likely past, the £300,000 mark. For that you get a car for all seasons, armed with a persuasive new remit.