You can never be shy or retiring driving the streets of Los Angeles in an Apple Green 2016 Bentley Continental GT Speed. It’s a car that announces its presence and demands the attention of everyone from fellow drivers to pedestrians. But, while welcoming admiring gazes as it glides by, GT Speed naturally elevates itself beyond its fellow cars.
In many ways, it’s a mobile art exhibit.
The 2016 Bentley Continental GT Speed is the fastest vehicle the British ultra-luxury supercar builder ever sent out into the world. Its 6.0 liter, 582 horsepower W12 engine will push this monument to comfort, class and luxurious technology to 206 mph. The massive, yet perfectly tuned power plant is a twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 32-valve beast.
The acceleration is utterly smooth, providing a sensation you won’t find in any other car. You can sense the unleashed force and seemingly unlimited speed. But, there’s no raw G-Force in the pickup. The machine simply steps easily out to MPH numbers other cars around you cannot match.
The exhaust note of the Bentley Continental is unique in automotive creation. I’ve driven track-tuned Corvettes that roar, Lexus LFAs that whined like Formula One cars of a few years ago, Aston Martins that erupt when you hit the gas and Jaguars that make an unmistakable growl.
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The Bentley Continental GT Speed makes a deep, voluminous bellow that echoes our over the road and fellow cars around you. It starts as a mild hum as the eight speed transmission works its way up through the early gears. Then, if you put your toe down a bit and kick in just a taste of the power, the earth shaking song fills your ears. It’s poetry.
Naturally, such a momentous engine is eternally thirsty — allowing mpg of 13 city and 21 highway. However, no one who purchases the $263,400 coupe worries about how much they might be spending on gasoline. They’re investing on a status symbol.
For a coupe, it’s a bigger car than it feels. Fortunately, 21 inch speed alloy wheels keep it grounded. It’s a heavy ride at more than three tons on the road, so it’s not necessarily nimble. However, it’s perfect balance allows for very little understeer and continuous electronically aided dampening allows for the driver to feel the car’s relationship to the road without feeling most of the bumps and road surface.
The GT Speed’s interior features everything you could conceive in a modern super luxury ride. There’s power everything from seats to windows to climate control sensors for all four seats.
If this makes sense, it’s easy to write about the Bentley Continental GT Speed – but it’s difficult to review. The purpose of a review is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a vehicle and suggest who might be the best buying candidate. What weaknesses worthy of mention can there be on a car this hyper-engineered?
The car is exactly as you would imagine — an elite driving experience rivaled in status and luxury only by its British cousin, the Rolls-Royce. Taking it through even the more elite streets of Los Angeles is a study in varied human reaction. I got thumbs up from Maserati, BMW and Mercedes-Benz owners. I got wide-eyed disbelief by commuters headed to work. The millennials would often revert to their social justice attitude and frown on the vehicle as a sign of modern consumer excess.
Sometimes I’d see aspirational dreaming from other drivers. Sometimes, I’d see flat out envy. But, credit the 2016 Bentley Continental GT Speed because envy is the beginning of all true greatness.
