03 Sep 07
By contrast, few would choose to set out to meet their maker listening to the muted burble of the catalytically clean and heavily silenced motor of the Speed, but its understated operation lends even more occasion to the sheer majesty of its operation. The forces it must generate to accelerate 2,350kg of Bentley to 60mph in just 4.3 seconds are barely worth thinking about.
I'd not have much time for the rest of the car were this raw power the only improvement brought by the Speed. In fact, it's merely the highlight of a car that may look scarcely different but that has been modified in every significant area. The gearbox has been made stronger and recalibrated, the brakes can now be made of carbon ceramic material if you've a spare 10 grand to splurge on the options list, the suspension has been completely revised, and even the steering rack has been given a better, more rigid mounting.
Which is just as well, really, as I've never particularly warmed to the Continental GT. If you cut me, I'd bleed Bentley, but while I've found its two more modern stablemates - the Flying Spur saloon and convertible GTC - to be exceptional examples of their respective arts, I have never been convinced by the GT coupe, either as a sports car or a long-distance cruiser.
I was hoping the Speed would change all that, and that those myriad modifications would reveal at last the sweet-steering, colossally quick and endlessly rewarding driver's car I believe the GT should have been from the start. What I found instead was a car that played to its many strengths but appeared either to pay lip service to fixing its weaknesses or ignore them all together. While the Speed has heroic reserves of both power and torque, the standard car is not exactly lacking in these areas. Driven swiftly but not suicidally it revealed itself as a very composed but rather uninvolving thing to unleash upon the wide open spaces of Andalucia. It was, I concluded, near enough the same as the Continental GT, only more so.
