Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible

It’s close to motoring nirvana: roof down, awash with power, ensconced in luxury. Just £230k to find…

Late summer sun has turned the Sicilian countryside shades that vary from straw to ochre. Over these past couple of hours, we’ve been driving through charcoal landscapes, too, testament to the earlier wildfires that spread across the island. That sharp, occasionally bitter air of the blackened terrain has been supplanted now by the sweet smell of drying grass, carried on a hot breeze over the windscreen into an already pungent, hide-trimmed cabin.

These are the things you notice, senses heightened by exposure to the elements, behind the wheel of the new Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible. The combination of olfactory overload, performance and grip – in a moment of nirvana – somehow convince me this car might be worth every penny. Even at £230k.

I know, it’s a measure of degree that won’t trouble many, but when faced with ultimates, it’s easier to understand how these things come to be exalted. Roof down, open road ahead of you and nothing but blue skies above does feel tantalisingly close to as good as it gets.

The just-arrived Speed model, as its name suggests, is the speediest of the Continental GTs, available as a sleek coupé or opulent convertible shown here. The driveline features a 650bhp, six-litre, 12-cylinder engine driving all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox. All four wheels steer, too, using the system that makes Bentley’s Flying Spur limousine the sweetest-handling saloon on the planet.

It’s as smart inside as out: contrasting leathers and black Alcantara faux suede adorn seats and steering wheel, adding a sporting edge to a high luxe environment; a mirror-finish carbonfibre dash; milled-from-solid switchgear; a Naim sound system to make your ears bleed.

And find some space among the vistas, open the taps and the net effect of applied tech and brute force bends the forces of physics somewhat. 0-60mph from standstill in 3.6 seconds is the stuff of rollercoasters – at once absurd and glorious and in need of wide-open spaces.

Which is how the sat-nav’s silent hand steers us to a long-disused air base.

Abandoned 20 years ago, Comiso was the largest NATO base in southern Europe and housed cruise missiles in seven concrete bunkers, to counter the Soviet Union’s deployment of similar. Closed in June 1991, in the intervening decades, nature reclaimed the base. Until Bentley’s forward troops arrived to clear a makeshift circuit…

Hence I’m now rolling onto what looks like the set of The Walking Dead, instructor beside me, for an exhilarating drive. Our hot lap takes us through the middle of warehouses, past the abandoned bunkers and across a deserted housing estate complete with abandoned supermarket, theatre, school and sports centre. I am, essentially, driving this Bentley as though I’d stolen it through empty, brush-strewn residential streets.

It’s fantastically uncouth and inappropriately intoxicating. And yet in this as all environments the Continental GT Speed can both cosset and enthral. Untroubled on broken tarmac, gliding over cobbles, pulling like a train on just-laid autopista – the Speed is supercar, grand tourer and objet d’art all in one.

Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible // 6.0-litre, twin-turbocharged W12 // 650bhp // 663lb/ft torque // 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds // top speed 208mph // 20mpg combined // 320g/km CO2 // £230,900 // bentleymotors.co.uk