Bentley
The Continental GT holds a unique position within the long, storied history of Bentley Motors. After all, while the crew from Crewe has made many models over the years, it’s the Conti GT that, arguably, was the car that saved the company from extinction.
Or at least obsolescence, if not complete doom. At the turn of the 21st Century, Bentley and Rolls-Royce were trapped in an odd sort of symbiotic relationship; even though the Volkswagen Group was in control of the former and BMW owned the latter, legal maneuvers and machinations meant the two British marques were stuck making twinned vehicles until 2003, with Bentley making the same stately, Rolls-Royce-lite rides it had been building for decades. Indeed, under the skin, they largely were the same for decades, with a general design that hadn’t changed much since the 1980s and an engine that traced its roots back to the 1950s.
To kick off the new era for the Flying B, VW needed a fresh product that could show off a new vision of a viable future for Bentley — and, of course, rake in profits to help keep the brand afloat. That car would turn out to be the Continental GT.
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2003: The first Continental GT breaks the mold at Bentley
Image Credit: Alex Lawrence For the first 84 years of the company’s existence, Bentley’s cars were made the old-fashioned way — coach built by hand. That changed with the Continental GT, which made its global debut at the 2002 Paris Motor Show before going into production the following year. While much of the fine pieces, like seats and trim, were still assembled by hand, the car’s chassis was assembled on a line like more, ahem, proletarian chariots. As a result, the car was massively more attainable; not cheap, mind you, at a base price of $149,990, but that was still half the cost of the old-school Continental R that quickly left production once the GT arrived.
One of the other biggest innovations of the new Conti was found under the hood. Instead of the 6.8-liter V-8 that had been a Bentley touchstone for decades, the VW Group had whipped up a new twin-turbo 12-cylinder – not a V-12, mind you, but a 12-pot with its cylinders staggered into a configuration shaped more like a “W.”
And the W-12 launched with a bang, with its inaugural form drumming up 552 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque — this in a day when Ferrari’s V-12 gran turismo, the 456M, only made 436 hp and Aston Martin’s range-topping V12 Vanquish made 466. In another drastic change for the Flying B, that engine was tied to a six-speed automatic connected to all four wheels, not the rears alone as in previous Bentleys. (Its combination of a twin-turbo engine and all-wheel-drive would prove a formula almost every other grand tourer would go on to ape.)
The car quickly proved a smash hit — for its power, for its appearance, and for the modernity that the VW Group had brought to the brand. As such, variants soon followed. By early 2005, a sedan version, the Continental Flying Spur, joined the mix, carrying over all the best parts of the coupe but adding room for adults to sprawl out in the second row. Later that year, the Continental GTC convertible joined the party. A sportier GT Speed version debuted in 2008, pushing the W-12 to 600 hp and 553 lb-ft; then, one year later, an even faster and more aggressive-looking Continental Supersports debuted. (Also, VW attempted to build its own sedan version called the Phaeton to battle the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, but it never really took off.)
The legacy Bentleys stuck around for a few more years, but by the time the second-generation Continental GT arrived, the old way was finished. The new century belonged to the Conti and its kin.
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2011: Evolution, not revolution, for Generation 2
Image Credit: Richard Pardon After eight years, Bentley rolled out the follow-up to the original Continental GT, with the car going on sale in early 2011. While it was touted as a proper successor, much of the skeleton was the same: the chassis, while modified, was still that of the first version; the wheelbase was the same, and the new car just a fraction of an inch different in length. The exterior and interior were refreshed, but the most notable change came in the powertrain department. While the 6.0-liter W-12 was still around, a smaller motor now became the entry-level choice in the form of a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8.
While the eight-cylinder engine was down on power, it wasn’t by much; it made 500 hp and 487 to the W-12’s 567 and 516, respectively. As such, it was only a tick slower — forward progress aided by a new eight-speed automatic versus the 12-cylinder car’s older six-cog ‘box — while also being more fuel-efficient, more agile (thanks to less weight in the nose) and more acoustically delightful.
As before, a convertible GTC version followed (for both W-12 and V-8), as well as a new GT Speed. The eight-cylinder saw an upgrade to the GT V8 S in 2014, which boosted power to 521 hp and 502 lb-ft while bringing some of the performance and visual upgrades found in the W-12-only Speed. And while a new W-12 Continental Supersports joined the range in 2017, it was the V-8-powered Continental GT3-R of 2014 that took the title of most exciting drive of this generation, packing a 592-hp eight-pot, a significantly sharper suspension and significant weight savings. At least, it was light for a Bentley; after shaving 220 pounds versus the GT V8 S, the coupe still measured in at around 4,900 lbs.
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2018: Generation 3 raises the bar
Image Credit: Bentley The third-generation Continental GT was the first in 15 years to use an all-new platform — an architecture shared not with a Volkswagen, but rather, the all-new Porsche Panamera. Not surprisingly given those mutual roots, the third-gen car was sportier coming out of the blocks, with a lighter body, a Porsche-designed eight-speed dual clutch gearbox replacing the slushbox auto, a powered anti-roll system and a more powerful W-12 — now dialed up to 626 hp and 664 lb-ft.
It also benefited from a thoroughly refined design inside and out, with its exterior receiving a perfectly updated version of the original look and the inside leveling up its level of luxury. While the interior’s craftsmanship and materials set the bar for a quarter-million-dollar car, it was an optional gimmick that stole the show: a tri-part dash panel that could rotate, like James Bond’s license plates, to reveal an infotainment screen, analog gauges or simple, clean veneer.
As was by now tradition, a V-8 version and a convertible soon followed, with a W-12-powered GT Speed coming soon thereafter and a GT V8 S joining the fun as well. Still, while things may have seemed normal for the Continental as the years went on, a big change was brewing.
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2024: So long, W12; welcome, hybrid power
Image Credit: Bentley Like the second generation, the fourth-gen Continental GT was really more of a facelift of its predecessor than a true new vehicle. And, like that previous car, the headline change was tied to its propulsion source: after finding homes in more than 100,000 cars over the decades, the W-12 was finally retired from duty.
In its place came what Bentley grandly named the “Ultra High Performance Hybrid” — a new version of the familiar 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, now joined with an electric motor and rear-mounted lithium-ion battery to make a total of 771 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque. (And, as a bonus, the new plug-in hybrid powertrain can reportedly move the Conti GT up to 50 miles on electricity alone.) Unlike past generations, however, the new car will launch in GT Speed form — suggesting, perhaps, that with the W-12 gone, the performance version becomes the new de facto Continental.
Still, as much as it’s changed over the years, it’s continuity that defines the Continental. Much like the Porsche 911, Bentley has followed a conservative path with the Conti’s styling, adjusting around the edges while keeping the broad strokes the same – and, as a result, the model has maintained a certain sense of timelessness. Unlike many a nameplate that’s been around for decades, you can park a Conti GT from 20 years back next to a brand-new one and the relation will be apparent. Few cars can claim such a line of success; then again, few cars can match Bentley’s gran turismo.
