15 Sep 06
The GTC's other obvious attribute is that it looks fabulous: smooth, curvy and not at all big-bottomed. And it's full of the usual Bentley niceties, such as those giant metal facia vents that get almost too hot to touch when the heater is on full blast, the pop-up 'B' in the radiator badge that you pull to release the safety catch, the knowledge that when a piece of trim or a switch looks like leather, wood or metal, it is.
The various chimes and beeps are annoying, but it's what Americans want, apparently; body engineering chief Peter Guest is going to look into a more intelligent seatbelt warning, for example, which doesn't operate when you're reversing with the belt off.
Otherwise, there's very little to fault with this fine motor car. The six-speed ZF automatic transmission could do with being more responsive when used in manual paddleshift mode (via two ultra-precise paddles fixed to the steering column), but the leisurely response compared with an XK, for example, is to do with managing the huge torque shifts of the W12 engine.
Besides, you only really want to use the paddles when pressing on along a twisty road. Otherwise, leave the transmission in Drive and let the mega-torque do the work, remembering that there's sometimes a pause on kickdown before the afterburners light up. The other flaw is that the door stays don't quite cope with the heavy doors on a hill. Would Audi A8-like gas struts be the answer?
'We tried it,' says Dr Eichhorn, 'but customers didn't like the feel. They thought it made the doors have too much friction, so they were hard to close.'
Even electric soft-close, non-slam door catches aren't enough for some people, it seems.
The first of those people will get their GTCs at the end of the year, and half of them won't have had a Bentley before. If you want one, and have the required £130,500 (£13k more than a GT or a Flying Spur), you probably won't take delivery for another year, such is the waiting list.
Incidentally the W12 engine, although developed from Volkswagen's design, is made at Bentley's Crewe factory. That makes it the only British-built 12-cylinder, as the Aston Martin units come from Germany. Bentley makes 40% of the world's 12-cylinder engines and there are far more W12-engined Bentleys around than there are W12 Volkswagen Phaetons and Touaregs and Audi A8s. Hurrah, I say.
