2020 Bentley Continental GT review: How to feel like a million bucks

It can be challenging not to slide in enjoy with a Bentley Continental GT when you’re working up Alpine roadways or soaking in the warm California sun in Napa Valley. This big, elegant, lavish grand tourer beautifully lends by itself to that form of driving — and life-style.

Quick ahead a few of months, and I am once again guiding the wheel of a Continental GT, this time on an unusually cold night time in Los Angeles, slumming it in cease-and-go visitors on the 110 freeway in a rainstorm. This is not the form of carefree, stunning motoring that finest displays off the Conti’s attributes. However, at the exact same time, it thoroughly does.

Sitting down in a Continental GT in visitors is like currently being wrapped in your personal particular fortress of solitude — and a lavishly appointed one, at that. The thick aspect glass signify you can’t hear the other cars as they chug by, the silent only interrupted every single so normally by the swoosh of the wipers clearing the rain from your windshield. At this five-mph rate, my focus turns to the heated, massaging seats, providing waves of rest up via the diamond-stitched leather. I treatment fewer about the strong V8 engine underneath the Bentley’s lengthy hood and enable the Naim audio process envelop me with my most loved tunes.

At a standstill, you uncover time to detect the finer facts. This is not my first time in Bentley’s new Continental GT, but I am continue to completely amazed by so many very little points. I like the way the knurled suggestions of the steering column stalks and temperature-management dials come to feel in opposition to my fingertips. I like the metallic Cotes de Geneva complete on the center console, and the way it warmly glows underneath the yellow hue of the streetlights. I uncover myself staring at the doorway panels and picture a hugely proficient seamstress hand-sewing every single single one of people diamond stitches. Oh, and kudos to the engineer who signed off on the specific body weight of the plungers that open up and near the air vents.

With the contact of a button, the Bentley Rotating Display’s forty moving elements and two electric powered motors can silently flip the 12.3-inch multimedia display screen guiding the dash, revealing a stunning trio of analog gauges in its position. This $6,365 choice is a very little extravagant, but there is one thing so lavish about currently being able to rid you of display screen time even though driving. The gauges are established on a backdrop that beautifully matches the rest of the dashboard veneer, and after a few minutes of driving with this simplified visage, it truly is pretty a lot my most well-liked environment. Furthermore, it truly is not like I’ll ever be at a loss for multimedia details, anyway, what with the electronic gauge cluster offering me access to journey and audio info, car settings and Bluetooth telephone menus.

As for the onboard infotainment tech, it truly is borrowed from Bentley’s sportier sibling, Porsche. It can be primarily a reworked edition of the Porsche Communication Management software program you may uncover in a Panamera, just with Bentley-specific hues and fonts. I have constantly cherished this tech in Porsche’s cars, so I you should not come to feel any otherwise about it in the Bentley. It can be a sturdy, colourful working experience befitting of a $200,000 luxurious car, with a Wi-Fi hotspot and Apple CarPlay. Porsche sadly isn’t going to assistance Android Automobile, and as a result, neither does Bentley.

Surrounded by the finest luxurious and a myriad of tech, it truly is effortless to loosen up in rush hour. Driving aids, which involve adaptive cruise management, blind-place monitoring and lane-maintaining support, can just take a ton of the guess-do the job out of these scenarios, far too. But I do uncover it a very little ridiculous that a 6-figure luxurious car isn’t going to give them as common products.

But lifetime is not all rainy-day slogs on congested freeways. Sooner or later the warm SoCal sun breaks via the clouds, the roadways dry and I have received some of the country’s finest canyon passes at my disposal. As a lot as the Bentley Continental GT shines as a cozy, comforting companion for crappy commutes, now a lot more than ever, it truly is a big coupe you may want to drive. A a lot more athletic chassis and one of the world’s finest V8 engines genuinely make this car occur alive.

Bentley will soon give the Continental GT with a 626-horsepower W12 engine, and although I certainly realize the attract of a 12-cylinder powerplant, it truly is not the one you should really get. In its place, go for the twin-turbocharged, four.-liter V8. It presents a not-insubstantial 542 horsepower and 568 pound-toes of torque, which is plenty of to move this two-doorway heavyweight to 60 mph in just underneath four seconds.

The primary purpose I like the V8 a lot more than the W12 is that it truly is so a lot a lot more urgent in its electricity supply. Dig into the throttle and the engine responds quickly, unleashing a wave of torque before you even strike 2,000 rpm, accompanied by the form of throaty growl you could not hope from a buttoned-up Bentley. An 8-pace computerized transmission shifts as rapidly as it does easily. Travel the Continental GT in its Activity environment and the transmission will happily fall a gear or two underneath braking before a turn, and burble on overrun as it smooches the engine’s 6,500-rpm redline.

What is exceptional is just how nimble the 2020 Continental GT is on winding roadways. You can expect to in no way escape the sheer measurement of this thing — slender passes alongside canyon corners are harrowing — but the new Conti is barely the big galoot its predecessor was. The common, 3-chamber air suspension keeps points taut and flat in turns without having upsetting the Bentley’s signature ride excellent. You can incorporate trick 48-volt anti-roll suspension tech, but even without having it, the Continental provides the form of brisk dealing with that belies its big stature.

Consider it or not, this car is not fifty percent bad on gas, both. The EPA rates the 2020 Continental GT V8 at sixteen miles for each gallon metropolis, 26 mpg freeway and 19 mpg put together. More than a 7 days of tests, I observed about 21 mpg. That is a full ton greater than the W12 model, which is rated at 12 metropolis, 20 freeway and 15 put together, and is also subject to the gas guzzler tax. No, I am not heading to consider and encourage you that a Bentley coupe is a gas-sipper. But around 26 mpg freeway for one thing this big and strong is not that horrible.

And just believe how fantastic you look heading down the freeway. The new Continental GT is an certainly attractive car — imposing and classy in all the right techniques. And just like the interior, the exterior design and style is accented with a amount of very little touches that support it exude an aura of grace. The crystal-like headlight housings, the very simple, oval taillights, the V8-specific quad exhaust suggestions — every single bit is wonderful. I specially enjoy the look of this specific check car, painted in a so-deep-it truly is-almost-black shade of Midnight Emerald, with dim trim around the home windows and headlights, complemented by a blacked-out grille.

This car wears Bentley’s 1st Edition spec, which involves a bunch of will have to-have options. You get the aforementioned rotating exhibit, the so-termed Metropolis Specification (best-view digital camera, visitors signal recognition, pedestrian detection and a lot more), the Touring Specification (adaptive cruise management, night time eyesight, lane-keep support and a lot more), 22-inch wheels, alloy pedals, the diamond-quilted interior pattern and a amount of other extravagant updos. Sure, at $forty seven,765, this 1st Edition choice expenditures as a lot as a absolutely loaded Kia Stinger GT, but it truly is a fantastic way to test a ton of bins you would want to incorporate to the Conti GT anyway. And I signify, who’s pinching every single penny and genuinely stretching their finances to make place for a Bentley in the garage? Go on, moneybags — live a very little.

No make a difference how you choice the Continental GT, you’re receiving a car that certainly feels as special as it looks. This is a car that constantly turns heads, even in stylish Los Angeles. With unrelenting V8 electricity and a literal wealth of luxurious and tech within, this is a car that’ll make you come to feel like the millionaire you probably are — even if you’re just trapped in visitors.