This is a Continental GT whose combustion engine actually starts when you press the \u2018engine start\u2019 button, needless to say \u2013 and then makes a fair bit of noise. In Sport mode especially, it gurgles, burbles and snarls as you load it up and let it rev. It is, honestly, gladdening to the ear, whether it\u2019s just idling or hulking and heaving its way, through the top of fourth gear, up to Laguna Seca\u2019s corkscrew corner.<\/p>\n
All it lacks, really, is that extra bit of operating range really special performance cars typically have \u2013 that magic last 1000rpm, if you like. Instead, you\u2019re snagging an upshift at 6000rpm, rather than wringing every last rpm out as you might in a really great GT-department Porsche or M-division BMW.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The eight-speed gearbox swaps cogs very agreeably. It does so quickly and positively enough on track in manual mode,\u00a0except for the odd occasion when it refuses a downshift close to the redline\u00a0and you have to ask all over again. At bumbling pace, we know, it works eerily smoothly too, apart from\u00a0the occasional bit of hesitancy when engaging drive or reverse.<\/p>\n
Does the car feel outright fast enough for the money? Honestly, you could buy quicker \u2013\u00a0and Bentley isn\u2019t bothered if you want to. This car isn\u2019t quite in the Ferrari Speciale<\/a>, Lambo Performante, Porsche Turbo<\/a> or Aston Martin AMR league for outright, asphalt-warping thrust. But, as Bentley is at pains to point out, it\u2019s all about quality over quantity. Not about how fast you go, but how you go fast, and how much fun you have in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n The car\u2019s chassis mostly lives up to that billing, when it\u2019s on song, as you\u2019re about to read. But I think the V8, for all its rortier audible character, struggles to \u2013 if only a little bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is a Continental GT whose combustion engine actually starts when you press the \u2018engine start\u2019 button, needless…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-756470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}