Bentley’s big boy trims flab, adds muscle

It’s the little things you’ll start to notice. Such as how the heated rail didn’t toast your towels quite the way you like them today. Or that the fine leaf tea has been left in the pot a fraction too long and has now slightly stewed. Or that the sunlight outside has become just a bit too glaring and could do with being turned down a notch.

These are the tiny niggles, the little first world problems you will start to notice, and indeed become aggrieved by, once you've had a Bentley in your life, even if just for 48 hours. The attention to detail, the fineness of finish, the little touches – all of what makes a Bentley feel special makes everything else just feel a touch to ordinary.

Which is not bad going for a car that has been around since 2003 and which shares so much of its structure and engineering with much more humble Audis and Volkswagens. The Continental GT has been a soaring success for Bentley – it was the first model launched under Volkswagen ownership and instantly took the venerable British luxury brand from making a paltry couple of thousand cars a year to runaway sales success. It combines the ideal of the classical Bentley (all beefy construction, torquey engine and unfussy, practical nature) with cutting edge VW Group technology.

Well, cutting edge might be stretching a point. After all, this is a car which is on the verge of teenagerhood, and while Bentley has done a manful job in keeping it feeling up to date, there’s no getting away from the slightly clunky infotainment system or the fact that there are Skodas which use some of the same bits and pieces.

It hardly seems to matter though. The fact is that the Continental GT has done a fine job for Bentley, not just in terms of sales, but also in terms of reinstating that old-style Bentley personality – that combination of sportiness and luxury.

Now, it has been made better by being made lesser. The Continental GT was the debut model for VW"s massive and complex W12 6.0-litre engine. 12 cylinders, arranged in a W formation (effectively two V6 engines mounted back-to-back) it has always been powerful, smooth and capable of making any car feel devastatingly fast.

So the fact that this Continental GT S model is packing a mere V8 should possibly be cause for concern. Should Bentley, of all brands, be seriously contemplating an entry-level model? What next? An LX trim with optional leather?

Not quite. The V8 model has been introduced to give Bentley a model that is at least less profligate with petrol than the big 12-pot, but read the fine detail and you’ll see that this is an engine which can hardly be called lesser. It’s actually basically the same unit as you’ll find in the Audi RS6. It’s a 4.0-litre V8 with twin turbos, cranking out 528hp and a simply colossal 680Nm of torque. That means it’s 45hp down on the W12, but only 20Nm in debit, so the actual day-to-day performance is hardly any worse off. The V8 S hits 100kmh from rest in 4.5secs – an identical time to that of the W12. And it even manages to match its claimed economy figure. 26mpg may be nothing to crow about, but the big Bentley hit its marks almost without effort, shutting down some of its eight cylinders on a light throttle to take the pressure off OPEC.

Better yet, it does so with more flair. The W12 is an engine almost too smooth and unruffled for its own good. The V8 makes amends for this by adding a dollop of aural character. It sounds like thunder, but thunder that's been to all the right schools – a NASCAR roar and rumble that knows its way around debutante ball. Honestly, it's addictive not merely in the way this 2.2-tonne car can gather speed but the glorious sounds it makes while doing so. In this, it shows the clear difference between Bentley and its erstwhile bedfellow of Rolls-Royce. Rolls has a stately, patrician air about its cars – Bentleys can do patrician, but this is a patrician that smiles and winks and probably has an ACDC record about their person.

The V8 also makes the Continental GT feel lighter on its feet. This is an illusion borne of clever suspension tweaking more than actual lower weight (there’s only 25kg in it between this and the W12) but whatever the cause, the effect is very pleasing. For a big, chunky car, this Bentley feels properly agile and responsive. Bentley’s engineers have found a way to make it ride with terrific comfort, no matter what setting you select for the adjustable dampers, but equally the GT corners utterly flat, regardless of road, steering input or velocity. You wouldn’t believe something with such a bluff nose could handle this well, but it does.

Of course, the interior is a delight. Yes, that old touch-screen is out of date now, and there remains only barely useable space in the rear seats (shameful in a car stretching the tapes to 4.8-metres) but the quilted leather seats are staggeringly comfy, the stitching on the leather facings of the dashboard precisely aligned and the chromed organ-stop switches for the air vents nothing less than a tactile delight. No cupholders though, in a car designed to whisk you effortlessly across continents? Surely even the well-heeled need somewhere to rest their eau minerale.

The thing is that you don't have to be all that staggeringly well-heeled. Now, I'm not for a moment going to suggest that this is an affordable car, but all things are relative. A standard-spec V8 S (presumably something that doesn't really exist) will set you back STG£139,000. Our test car, in retina-scorching Monaco Yellow paint racked up a STG£179,000 tag thanks to a long list of optional extras (including a Naim stereo system that does for your ears what the paintwork does for your eyes). So realistically, you're not going to get change from €300,000 to land one here.

But wait – a car with four seats (just), all-season-friendly four-wheel-drive, 310kmh performance potential and a badge to conjure memories of Le Mans domination and the playboy lifestyle on the Riviera? The Conti GT has only two real rivals then – the Porsche 911 Turbo and the Ferrari FF. The 911 is less imposing, less practical and, in a way, less fun. The Ferrari will cost you at least twice as much.

OK, so bargain hunters can look elsewhere and Dacia won't be looking nervously over its shoulder at a potential competitor. Still though, this is massively impressive stuff. A car that feels as well engineered and constructed as a Brunel bridge, which can compress time and space with a Saturn V-like fury and which is yet practical, easy to live with and feels close to rugged at times. No wonder time spent here makes the rest of the world feel a touch banal.

The lowdown:

Bentley Continental GT V8 S

Price: €360,000 approx as tested (range starts at €280,000 approx).

Power: 528hp.

Torque: 680Nm.

0-100kmh: 4.5sec.

Top speed: 310kmh.

Claimed economy: 10.6l/100km. (26.8mpg).

Co2 emissions: 246g/km.

Motor tax: €2,350.

Verdict: Stately home for sale, going fast. 5/5.