Bentley Continental GT Speed 2021 Review

The Bentley Continental GT certainly lives up to the ‘GT’ part of its moniker. The suave two-door unfurls its vast performance envelope with such well-concealed violence that it requires a vigilant watch on the speedo to ensure your driver’s licence doesn’t end up as confetti.

Even the entry-level V8-powered Conti GT is an eye-openingly rapid grand tourer, so meaningfully raising the performance bar would take some doing.

No surprise, then, that the Bentley engineering team has left no stone unturned in conceiving the new 2021 Bentley Continental GT Speed flagship.

The latest addition to the GT range is due in Australia around the end of this year and will be available in coupe and convertible formats.

Pricing for the Speed is still to be confirmed but it’s likely to start just under $500,000, marking a healthy premium over the W12 GT which opens at $422,600 plus on-road costs for the coupe and $464,600 plus ORCs for the cabrio.

Naturally, the 6.0-litre powerplant in the 2021 Bentley Continental GT Speed has been tweaked to liberate some extra horses – 659PS (485kW) versus 635PS (467kW) for the standard W12.

But this is the least dramatic element of the Speed’s upgrades as the real story lies in the chassis development.

The Continental GT is no minnow at 4.85m in length and just under 2m in width. Then there’s that hefty girth of just under 2.3 tonnes.

Making something this big and heavy into an agile device couldn’t be achieved without some clever engineering, and the GT Speed incorporates its fair share of that.

The standard Bentley Continental GT already gets air suspension and a 48-volt electronic active roll control system that continuously adjusts the stiffness of the anti-roll bars to quell body roll under hard cornering.

The Speed builds on this with four-wheel steer that applies up to four degrees of steering angle to the rear wheels.

At low speeds, the rear wheels turn in the opposite direction to the front to reduce turning radius and boost agility, while the inverse occurs at higher speeds to boost directional stability.

Another key tech highlight is an electronic limited-slip rear differential – the Speed is the first Bentley to get this feature – which enhances traction out of tight turns and allows the driver greater throttle adjustability when cornering.

The eLSD works in tandem with a reprogrammed all-wheel drive system that’s more rear-biased, sending a maximum of 36 per cent of torque to the front wheels in ‘Comfort’ and ‘Bentley’ drive modes.

In ‘Sport’ mode, the front wheels get a maximum of 28 per cent of torque, and in oversteer situations only one-tenth of the torque to counter the slide is sent to the front wheels, compared to ‘Bentley’ mode.

The Speed’s stability control system has also been loosened up considerably – to an even greater degree than what Porsche allows in the Panamera – with ‘Dynamic’ mode allowing scope for some sideways action.

There’s even an ESC Off mode – never before offered on a Bentley road car – that enables skilled drivers to execute lurid, smoky drifts.

The other key component of the Speed’s dynamic package is its titanic carbon-ceramic braking system, claimed to be the biggest offered on any production car.

The front stoppers are garbage-can-lid-sized 440mm discs with 10-piston callipers.

Crucially, this set-up reduces unsprung weight by 33kg versus conventional steel brakes, which further benefits the Speed’s agility.

So much for the ingredients; what you’d like to know is how the new 2021 Bentley Continental GT Speed fares as an overall package.

In a word: brilliantly.

The Bentley events team had chalked out an adventurous drive route winding through southern Sicily for the international launch, putting both ride and dynamics under the microscope.

The initial leg was across narrow, bumpy roads, with ‘enterprising’ Sicilian drivers (who seemed to take great pleasure in straddling the centre of the road) potentially looming around every corner.

Immediately evident was that the Speed hasn’t sacrificed the silken ride quality of the standard Continental GT.

In ‘Comfort’ mode even the worst road surface imperfections are ironed out without jarring your spine.

The hulking 6.0-litre W12 also doesn’t intrude on the refined ambience, delivering a towering wave of torque (there’s 900Nm on tap from just 1500rpm) with nothing more than a muted growling whoosh.

It almost doesn’t matter what revs the engine is spinning at; floor the throttle and the GT Speed launches at the horizon as though catapulted out of a giant slingshot.

Bentley quotes a 0-100km/h split of 3.6sec and top whack of 335km/h, which isn’t too far shy of the hypercar brigade.

Twist the knurled drive mode selector to ‘Sport’ and the Speed seemingly forgets how big and heavy it is.

This becomes apparent across a winding mountainous stretch of tarmac strewn with hairpins and tight bends. The four-wheel steer greatly boosts the car’s ability to rotate on roads such as this, which means you can fling it around more like a sportster than a grand tourer.

The massive contact patch – via 275/35ZR22 Pirelli rubber at the front and 315/30ZR22 at the rear – provides massive grip, which, further enhanced by the eLSD and AWD set-up, means you can jump on the gas very early out of corners.

The eight-speed dual-clutch auto is generally fool-proof – shifts in Sport mode are achieved twice as quickly as in the regular W12-powered Conti GT – and the transmission generally has the knack of being in the right gear at the right time.

That said, sudden throttle applications can flummox the software, resulting in a moment’s hesitation and then downshifting one more gear than necessary.

We’d been promised a “surprise location” for our lunch stop, and this turns out to be the Comiso Air Base, a former WWII aerodrome that, later on, during the Cold War, became a NATO site that housed 112 nuclear cruise missiles.

Rather innovatively, the Bentley events team created what resembles a rally special stage in the tight bumpy confines of this compound.

It’s not the sort of environment where you would normally contemplate manhandling a half-million-dollar luxury grand tourer, but that’s exactly what we would be doing.

The Speed coped remarkably well, scooting around the course with great vigour. The brakes copped a pounding through the succession of mainly 90-degree turns, but stopping power remained solid to the end.

This offbeat exercise fully brought home the expansive repertoire of the GT Speed as it’s hard to think of too many competitors that can so comprehensively straddle the gulf between cossetting grand tourer and backroad blaster.

The 2021 Bentley Continental GT Speed may represent a sizeable step up – in dynamic terms – from regular Conti GT models, but it takes a keen eye to pick up on its identity.

The only external clues are a darkened radiator grille, new side skirts, Speed badging on the front fenders and bespoke 22-inch rims.

Far from being a stripped-out go-faster special, the Speed’s cabin is impeccably and opulently crafted.

The diamond-quilted leather front seats (with ‘Speed’ badging on the head restraints) are both aesthetically pleasing and nicely supportive of your torso.

The sporty ambience is rounded off by an Alcantara-wrapped steering wheel, piano black wood veneer and lovely aluminium-ringed dials and rotary heating/air-con vents.

It needn’t end here, as there’s ample scope for buyers to tailor the interior to their individual tastes.

The raw stats surrounding the 2021 Bentley Continental GT Speed may not scream “Massive Improvement!” over the donor car, yet it’s exactly that.

It’s faster and more rewarding across challenging roads and, better still, the Speed’s dynamic enhancement doesn’t come at the expense of the standard car’s lovely loping stride or cossetting refinement.

All in all, it’s pretty much a case of having your cake and eating it – except that this gateau comes with a healthy price premium that’s still to be set.

How much does the 2021 Bentley Continental GT Speed cost?
Price: $480,000 estimated (plus on-road costs)
Available: Late 2021
Engine: 6.0-litre W12 twin-turbo petrol
Output: 485kW/900Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: 14.0L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 319g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested