Channelling a century of car-making genius
You don’t make cars this good without a bit of a run-up. By Tim Pollard
The thing about running your own Bentley is it makes you feel a little bit special every single day. In this job, we get to drive all kinds of vehicles from the sublime to the sub-prime – but the thrill of having a Conti on the drive is very real and still makes me double-take when the St James Red paintjob catches my eye from an upstairs window.
I’ve had ample time to get used to the Mk3’s styling now. The Conti GT has matured into a design clearly comfortable in its own skin. Generations one and two changed little over the years, but this one is noticeably tauter and tighter, a little less blobular than before. It’s a wardrobe that feels deserving of our car’s £151,800 base price.
‘Footballer spec’ and ‘Postman Pat’s gone up in the world’ are two of the less kind comments that greeted our Conti on arrival at CAR HQ. Blame the bright red paint with contrasting £3250 Continental Blackline dark grille, exhaust tips and window surrounds. All chrome is blacked-out for a sinister vibe, but I’m warming to the distinctive colour scheme in an age where so many car parks are clogged with silvers, greys and sludge browns. It’s bright and breezy and brings out the Conti’s sportier side.
It’s no shrinking violet, for sure, and that smoked grille dominates the front of the car. It’s huge – 95cm at the widest expanse of latticework – and has plenty of room to house Bentley’s front parking camera plus myriad sensors for enabling smart cruise control. More on these semi-autonomous features in a future report.
Climb onboard and the latest Continental is a cinch to drive. Gone are the days where you have to resort to the manual to decipher which button does what in a Bentley, and I’ve found the infotainment system easy to learn. It pairs easily with my iPhone and Blackberry, and tracks down the cheapest petrol locally.
The logic of the touchscreen is exemplary; it’s one area where Bentley is light years ahead of certain Italian thoroughbreds I could mention, and a good example of the Wolfsburg connection really helping out.
It’s telling that two-thirds of this report is taken up just by the quality and design heft of the Continental GT. The feelgood factor is sky-high before you even dab the start button and waken the 4.0-litre V8. We might’ve been limited to short, essential hops during the lockdown and had scant chance to stretch the Continental’s legs, explaining our current average of 16mpg. But the sun is out and, with the promise of better times to come, I can’t wait to plan a proper road trip befitting our car’s DNA.
What I’m hoping for is the opportunity to let it monster a long haul to Scotland for a weekend away or a dash to the south coast for a Goodwood meet; with adaptive dampers set to Comfort, the large 21-inch alloys eliminate most road patter with impressive ease and the pokey V8 can waft or wing it with the best of them.
This vintage of Conti is full of promise – and I intend to uncork every last drop in my summer of being a Bentley Boy.
The feelgood factor is sky-high before you even dab the start button and waken the 4.0-litre V8