Driven: 2008 Bentley Continental GT; What's my lion?

September 20, 2:00 PMAuto Review ExaminerJohn Matras

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We’ll not say that the leather in the Bentley Continental GT is creamy. Not because it isn’t, but rather it’s more true to say that cream has the texture of Bentley leather. It is, in a way, how Bentley says that nothing has changed while everything has changed.

When introduced as a 2004 model, the Continental GT was the first wholly new and unique Bentley in 70 years, dating to when Rolls-Royce had bought Bentley and began making Bentleys as slightly “decontented” Rolls, or motorcars—to use the proper nomenclature—for those who want the luxury of a Rolls-Royce without the attention the Spirit of Ecstasy atop the classic Rolls grille usually brings.

The changes came about when the VW-Audi group acquired Bentley in the late Nineties (in a deal that let Rolls-Royce slip to BMW). Bentley’s lineup, though certainly luxurious, was dated and anyway, based on Rolls rolling stock that soon would not be available.

Volkswagen’s solution was to allow Bentley to create a thoroughly modern Bentley, loosening its corporate purse strings for an up-to-date interpretation of what a Bentley should be. And that, the new Bentley designers determined, should pay homage to founder W.O. Bentley and the powerful, brutish British cars that raced at Le Mans before the Rolls-Royce era.

And so the Bentley Continental GT.

The goal for Bentley’s designers and engineers was to create the world’s fastest four-place coupe. To that end they raided the VW-Audi parts bin, borrowing Volkswagen narrow-angle V-6 technology. Two V-6’s were joined at the crankshaft at an angle wider than that of the V-6s’. For lack of a better term, Bentley calls this a “W12,” noting that, at little more length than a V-6, it’s the world’s most compact twelve-cylinder engine .

That space-efficient powerplant has several advantages. One is that, unlike other front-engined twelves, it doesn’t need a long hood. That in turn allows more of the vehicle’s length to be used for passengers. So while many four-passenger coupes are really two-plus-a-cargo-compartment-with-seat-belts, the rear seat of a Continental GT can truly hold two adults, at least if front passengers cooperate with their seat location.

Inside story Not that it’s easy to get in. The front seat backs do tip and the seats power forward, but it still doesn’t make a wide passageway under a low roof. Once in, however, the seats are well cushioned and one is comfortable as one could expect in the back seat of a four passenger coupe.

The front seats are like clouds that want to cuddle. Many multi-adjustable seats are a struggle to find one position that’s comfortable. With the Continental GT, it doesn’t matter. It is, as they say, all good.

Great pains have been taken to give this Bentley a traditional British look while also using modern technology to do so. Bentley notes that leather is cut in a way that reduces waste while company designers have employed techniques that allow wood to bend in ways it never could have years ago. Still, the wood has been selected and processed to produce mirror image grain. The grain on one door matches that on the other side. You’ll notice if only if you look for it, but that’s part of what makes up an ultra-luxury car.

Trim is designed to evoke classic British atmosphere. The dash vents are opened and closed via “organ stop” controls. The aluminum pedals have a vintage look and are branded with the Bentley trademark “B.” Of course, the car’s clock is obligatorily analog, in this case a Swiss-made Breitling chronograph.

Counterintuitive The central screen is meant to cover multiple functions. Have you heard people complain about BMW’s iDrive system? Even more people would find fault with Bentley’s system if more people had driven Bentleys. The screen is intended to be used for the navigation system, vehicle information readouts, and the back-up camera. All that we used was the latter. The system was wholly counterintuitive, and since there seemed to be a semester’s worth of learning and we only had the car for a week, we didn’t crack the manual to try to learn it.

Cracking open the hood—OK, in Brit-speak, bonnet—to admire that twelve-cylinder mechanical marvel is something even the non-technically inclined will appreciate. The Bentley doesn’t cover the engine with a plastic imitation of a Klingon warship. Instead, the top of the intake manifold flanked by its respective plenum fill the under-hood area, and one really doesn’t have to know what those are to appreciate the view.

Bentley’s “Flying B” logo does more than adorn the hood, by the way. The main hood release is by the driver’s left shin. Pull it and the center of the badge pops up as a release for the hood’s safety catch. No mucking about under the leading edge of the hood for Bentley.

The rear badge is used as a trunk release. Simply push the black center and the trunk opens. By power, of course. The trunk—OK, boot—is huge for a coupe. Says Bentley, “enough boot space to swallow luggage for a family fortnight away.” Indeed. It’s nicely lined in the same carpet used inside the car.

The trunk/boot volume is due in part, says Bentley, to the positioning of the fuel tank. We’d credit also the Continental GT’s massive haunches. If the lion is a British symbol—and it is—one could have been the inspiration for this Bentley. It’s not cheetah sleek, but rather massive, all the way forward to its substantial egg crate grille—which unfortunately is plastic. Still, it’s a masculine form, built with enough testosterone that it gets a five o’clock shadow.

Driving with Testosterone It drives that way as well. The long and heavy door opens to what we considered to be a seating position rather low in relationship to the cowl and side window sills, like driving a leather-lined foxhole with wheels. Naturally, a proximity key is standard with the Bentley GT. There’s a start/stop button on the center console, and pushing it initiates a turbine-like whine as the starter motor revs twelve cylinders to ignition velocity. The engine fires with an appropriately basso rumble.

The engine is six liters large and has two turbos, one for each side, and altogether the pistons, cams, crankshaft and turbos and all the other parts that go into making an engine combine to produce a rousing five hundred and fifty horsepower, worthy of being written out rather than shown in mere numerals. Torque, the twisting power that gives a car its acceleration, comes in at four hundred seventy nine pounds-feet at a mere 1600 rpm, or barely above idle. What that means can be felt in driving. The horsepower makes this Bentley fast, but the torque gives the Continental GT a surge that’s almost embarrassing, making it look like the driver is trying too hard to accelerate away from a stop. No, actually it’s the other way around.

But did we say the Bentley was fast? Bentley claims the Continental GT has a top speed of 198 mph. Spelling that out: one hundred ninety eight miles per hour. Not that we could verify that. Indeed, only those few with access to an Air Force runway or perhaps the Bonneville Salt Flats will know for sure, and certainly it’s a velocity that serves no rational purpose. Rather it’s there just for the knowing that one could.

Harnessing that power is another matter. The Continental GT was designed from the outset to have all-wheel drive and so it does. It is—and this we tried, but only for scientific purposes only—it’s impossible to break the tires loose on dry, or for that matter, wet pavement. The Bentley simply hikes up and hunkers down and just flat goes. It’s uneventful, really, with only the bellow of the W12 unleashed and the rearward push of backbone into creamy leather to indicate that something very special is going on.

Sinful It’s a sin, perhaps, in this time of high fuel prices that such indulgence the EPA says costs 10 mpg city/17 mpg highway. Our own experience during 150 miles of admittedly enthusiastic driving—or else why does one pilot such a beast—was 10.5 mpg. Can we repent with a Prius on alternating days?

Certainly it’s extravagance—our test Continental GT had a bank account-constricting base price of $175,990, boosted with options (including a mandatory gas guzzler tax of $3,700 and delivery charge of $2,595) to a bottom line of $187,965. And no, we didn’t misplace a decimal point.

Still, if that’s not enough, Bentley has an even more powerful Continental GT Speed with a six hundred horsepower W12, and for those wishing more comfort for rear seat passengers, the Continental Silver Spur sedan, er, saloon, also available in Speed trim.

All, of course, have that creamy soft leather. Very, very fast leather. Indeed.

Illustrations, top to bottom: Bentley Continental GT overall; Continental GT interior; Breitling clock; W-12 engine; Continental GT, rear side view. Illustrations courtesy Bentley Motors, Inc.