Fancy a Bentley?

AN all-new Bentley Continental GT capable of hitting more than 200mph is set to be one of the stars at this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show – Europe’s top motoring display in 2017.

The third generation of the luxury grand tourer has been designed and is hand-built at Bentley’s headquarters at Crewe in Cheshire and the company says it is at the pinnacle of performance.

With a 626bhp 6.0-litre twin turbo W12 engine under the bonnet the car has a 0 to 60 acceleration time of 3.6 seconds and a maximum speed of 207mph.

And for the first time Bentley is using an eight-speed dual clutch transmission on the new Continental GT for a sharper shift pattern.

The new gearing also improves fuel consumption and the latest Continental GT is rated at 278g/km CO2 – a 16 per cent improvement over the previous model.

Fuel economy is now said to be 23.2mpg compared to 19.9mpg before.

Wolfgang Dürheimer, chief executive of Bentley Motors, said: “Bentley has been at the forefront of luxury Grand Touring for nearly one hundred years.

“The new, third-generation Continental GT is the pinnacle of our design and engineering achievements and marks the next step in Bentley’s journey.

“We are the world leader in luxury mobility and our products and services define new luxury in the automotive world.

“The new Continental GT encapsulates our desire to innovate as well as celebrate our heritage and take the Bentley ownership experience to the next, unparalleled level.”

The new Continental GT sits on an adaptive chassis and uses Bentley’s ‘intelligent’ 48-volt Dynamic Ride System to control ride comfort and lateral roll.

Bentley says it cushions passengers from excessive movement as well as making the car feel effortlessly precise.

The new model will make its debut at the Frankfurt show on September 12 and is the first production car to have an aluminium body that has been created using so-called Super Formed technology – a precision technique working with aluminium heated to 500°C.

Using the technique has allowed Bentley’s designers to create a more complex, sculpted body line for the new GT, which has been inspired by the EXP 10 Speed 6 concept car first seen back in 2015.

The interior features Bentley’s latest Koa veneer and again the marque is breaking the mould by offering dual veneer finishes for the first time.

More than 10 square metres of wood are used in each Continental GT and it takes the Bentley craftsmen nine hours to fit the inlays by hand.

Twenty-way adjustable seats set a new standard while the embroidery used on the seat finish creates a new ‘diamond within diamond’ quilt pattern.

Since the Continental GT first went into production in 2003 Bentley has produced more than 66,000 models making it the company’s best selling model.