Bentley’s Continental GT displays a dash of good sense

Bentley’s quasi-sporty luxury coupe, the Continental GT, has dropped cover ahead of the Frankfurt Motor Show.

The new third-generation model sports crisper lines, LED headlights and a typically sumptuous interior. Though it has a mighty 626 horsepower under the hood from a 6.0-litre twin-turbo W12 engine, the real story is the dashboard.

See, these hyper-expensive modern luxury cars have to satisfy young and old money at the same time. Younger buyers want a large touch screen with navigation and music information, more traditional buyers might just want some analog gauges, and those who just want to admire a Bentley’s wood trim will want nothing there at all.

Bentley’s solution is to give the buyer all three: a large panel houses three different panels on a rotating assembly that can be switched out at the touch of a button. One is a touch screen to which we’re accustomed in modern cars. The second is a bank of three analog gauges, an outside thermometer, a compass, and a stopwatch. The third is simply a blank but beautifully lacquered piece of wood trim. It’s a brilliant solution to a design challenge.

The hefty coupe managed to drop 80 kilograms over the previous Continental GT, but still weighs 2,245 kg. Power is sent to all four wheels via an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, and the front wheels can take 38 per cent of the engine’s torque in normal mode and just 17 per cent in sport mode for a more rear-biased driving experience. The Continental GT sprints from rest to 100 km/h in 3.7 seconds, before topping out at 333 km/h.