**A Detailed Review of the Bentley Continental GT**

The Bentley Continental GT is a car that offers a unique balance of power, comfort, and refinement. If you're planning to do long distances and prefer near silence, this car is worth considering. However, it's essential to note that the McLaren 720S scores in terms of super sports performance.

**Long-Distance Cruising**

The Bentley Continental GT is designed for long-distance cruising, with a road ability that is leagues ahead of the DB11 and Q7. The gap between this car and those mentioned above is significant, but it's not as pronounced when you're on the motorway. This makes it an excellent choice for those who want to enjoy a comfortable ride without sacrificing too much performance.

**Balancing Performance and Comfort**

Ultimately, the Bentley Continental GT is all about balance. You can choose between having a really quick and exciting car that's also good on the motorway or one that's quiet and refined but okay on back roads. This flexibility makes it an excellent choice for those who want to enjoy their driving experience.

**Minor Niggles**

Despite its many positives, there are some minor niggles to be aware of. One such issue is the polarized sunglasses problem, where the infotainment screen becomes blank when you put them on. Another quirk is the glovebox release mechanism, which requires a bit of fiddling to use. Additionally, the luggage compartment can become hot in certain conditions.

**Fuel Consumption and Emissions**

The Bentley Continental GT's fuel consumption is impressive, with an average of 35-30 MPG on the motorway, despite its powerful engine. This makes it an excellent choice for those who plan to drive at moderate speeds. However, it's worth noting that this car is not designed for long-term use without charging.

**Interior and Fit and Finish**

The interior of the Bentley Continental GT is truly exceptional, with a high level of soft leather on the doors, dashboard, and seats. The stitching is lovely, and the milled metal finish adds to the overall classy atmosphere. Even the paddles have been upgraded to a solid metal design that feels cold to the touch.

**Engine Performance**

The Bentley Continental GT's engine is impressive, with a low-pitched McLaren-like baritone sound when you open the throttle. However, it lacks instant response in seventh gear, and the car takes a bit of time to pick up speed. Additionally, the gearbox can be slow to change down gears, which may not be ideal for aggressive driving.

**Final Thoughts**

After spending 48 hours behind the wheel of the Bentley Continental GT, I found myself feeling remarkably refreshed. The car's ability to balance performance and comfort is truly impressive, making it an excellent choice for those who want a luxurious driving experience. While there are some minor niggles, they do not detract from the overall quality of this exceptional car.

**The Train Ride Home**

As we made our way back to the UK, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. The Bentley Continental GT's trip to Calais was a special one, and it left an indelible mark on my memory. Who knows? Maybe someday, I'll be able to take this car on another adventure, and we can relive those unforgettable moments.

**Conclusion**

The Bentley Continental GT is a truly exceptional car that offers an unparalleled driving experience. While it may not be the perfect choice for everyone, its unique blend of power, comfort, and refinement makes it an excellent option for those who value sophistication and luxury above all else.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to San Tropez arguably the best place in the world to launch this the new McLaren GT now this is the firm's first ever dedicated grand tourer model it's designed to inject some luxury some comfort and some refinement without losing the core McLaren attributes of high performance and engaging driving dynamics now there's only one way to really test a GT car and that's with a really long journey so that's what we're gonna do we're gonna drive it from here back to the UK and it's a long way to the UK and I think it's Sir that way right so we're on our way now before we really get going we've got the first big test than the McLaren here it's all very well being fast and comfortable and refined across the ground covering great distances but it's got to be usable day to day it's gonna be easy to live with the streets of San Tropez are a very good test of that because they are tight they're nul there's lots of bumps and potholes and yet the McLaren's remarkably good here you know McLeod have worked hard on the visibility and it's still a little bit limited out through the rearview mirror but the rest of it you know there's lots of light you feel confident and we've got the optional nose lift here easy to press got a massive speed bump we're just going over no scraping with carbon fibre we like that it remarkably will be this is the biggest McLaren this side of a speed tail it's longer a bit wider yeah it's confidence-inspiring thanks for that visibility and the ride is quite cushioned as well this just a hint of firmness but it's not uncomfortable it's quieter you still get the odd really quiet distant clunk that's sort of typical McLaren stiff structure kind of reverberations as the suspensions dealing with all the bumps but it's it's supple it's comfortable steering's quite liked the engine it's remarkably muted they've got this quiet start up so it's not attracting attention it's much more GT it's it's still there that kind of hard edged McLaren noise but it's a lot less ostentatious than the other cars so you could use this everyday so we made our way out of San Tropez now and we're on to some classic Grand Touring roads though typical French D roads that are lightly trafficked fast-flowing not the sort of roads that you really want to attack you just make progress so we've left everything still in comfort on the on the GT and it's really rather nice along here they've softened off the damping a bit and it just flows with the road you can just glide along through corners you're making ground but you're not not really on it I've just left it in Auto there's quite a lot of torque from the engine just pulling you along this is the way to travel it really is sun shining beautiful French scenery and some lovely roads and as I say they're not roads that you want to just drive flat out on you just taking them in and the McLaren helps you there yes there's a supercar somewhere underneath here but it's not Goulding you own at the moment everything in comfort it just happily mooches along it's nice now these flowing French D roads are very nice and all but when they run along in the shadow of some of the finest driving roads in Europe and you're driving a McLaren you simply have to turn off as soon as possible and head for the mountains okay so we've moved off the relaxing D roads and we've headed up one of the many coals that went their way across the mountains above San Tropez I can't remember exactly which coal this is I'll be honest let's call it the colder flippin brilliant for argument's sake because it's really go around a corner and think oh that was a good one it couldn't get better and it does it's amazing what a road so if the McLaren is gonna shine it's gonna have to shine on these roads now let's deal with this engine for starters so it's another iteration of the familiar twin turbo four-litre v8 but in the GT it gets a higher compression ratio and low inertia turbo so it's supposed to have a friendlier less spiky character than normal a more gradual increase in boost but it's still there that distinctive McLaren character they stop at the edges you still get that slight build just below 2,000 3,000 and then it just takes off it's got 612 brake horsepower 465 pounds foot of talk now all ran out to eight and a half thousand rpm even though Matt's power is seven and a half thousand it still got that traditional mechanical industrial noise that MacLaren's are so well known for but to make this more of a GT car they've softened off the edges and I think it works much better in fact it's not the most glorious sounding unit but it's got presence and it it means business you can tell it means business a word it flies when you give it the beans and you get this lovely little turbo wastegates chato Q like I say it's not it's not operatic it's not charismatic but it's effective and the more you listen to it the more you end up liking it and we've got the 7-speed twin clutch gearbox and up here it just throws one ratio onto another up and down the box it's so quick and the brakes that felt a bit grabby and unhelpful around town suddenly make sense that longer pedal travel allows you just to mete out the stopping power and there is a lot of stopping power even on these iron discs cast-iron discs you can cover some serious ground now it's not just the engine that's been softened off a little the chassis has a swell is the proactive dampers doing their thing now we've wound everything into sport here you could have track as well but it's just a little bit too harsh for the road but in sport my word they are very very good it just breathes with the surface it sort of glides over bumps you're aware they're there it's not magic carpet ride but they've controlled just the right side of firmware as a 600 LT would be much much much harder in its control this just rounds all the edges off keeps the body flat even braking hard or throwing into a corner body control is just phenomenal now it would be very easy to call the GT a 720 s in a more civilized soup but McLaren claimed that two thirds of the car is new and a lot of that is in the bodywork and I'll do about you but I actually quite like it I think it looks really good particularly in this burnished copper paintwork but then so it should at four thousand pounds this car also has the electrochromatic roof which you can tint or lighten at the touch of a button that's a really nice touch we've already talked a bit about the engine the mid mounted four litre twin-turbo v8 612 brake horsepower 456 pounds foot a talk but perhaps the most interesting thing about the GT is the fact that it's the first McLaren to get what they call proactive damping so this is a step on from adaptive damping it doesn't just react to the road it has an algorithm that then uses the information it's getting to predict what's going to happen next and set up the damping as a result now in general this cars a bit softer than their normal cars particular at the front where they've tried to what they call give it a parallel movement as it goes over bumps so it goes all over all of a piece to breathe with the road rather than follow every imperfection and it does seem to work as we found out now obviously this is a GT car so apart from being luxurious and fast it also has to carry luggage and that's where it gets interesting so shall we have a look so at the front there's 150 litres of storage but at the back here McLaren have found 420 litres under this power tailgate here neat touch now McLaren have covered the boot floor with what they claim is material developed by NASA it's allegedly indestructible scratch proof staying proof you name it I don't know that's true but it's pretty cool now you're probably guessing that underneath this luggage compartment is the engine and above it is a very big area of glass so your luggage is going to get very hot indeed now we can say they thought about this very deep tint on the on the window here and these vents here feed air underneath the luggage compartment and allegedly cool it now McLaren say even when running really hard and fast the interior of the luggage bay stays at 40 degrees centigrade which sounds quite hot to me still anyway another neat touch that air is then channeled over the back here and over the catch for the boot so apparently you'll never get your fingers scorchy oh when you go to open the boot the steering has been softened a little as well so some of that hard edge grittiness that is mclaren trademark that constant little writhing away as your even in a straight line just letting you know what's going on it's been it's been muted a little bit but not too much it makes it much more easy to live with everyday but you're still getting a sense of communication you still know what it's happening at the contact patch between tire and road and it's it's just the right side of quick it's not Ferrari sneeze and you're off quick it's really lovely right a response you can just place the car so well and hold fast the balance it's got that typical McLaren balanced softer edged but it's there this beautiful all of a piece sizing through corners got this road brilliant I love this road you can just ease up to the edge of grip by being a bit softer it's a bit more approachable than some of the Sport Series stuff where on the road you really need to be giving it everything to start to get under its skin with this because there's a little more movement you can trust it a bit more it's on these roads just you can absolutely flow along the road it's fast it's so precise but it's flowing it's just pour it down this lovely stretch of tarmac God I could do this all day brittany uk's a long way away but i don't mind it can wait it's not it starts sharp it's not as ultimately involving as to say I'm 6 hundred l 0 720 X but then in many ways that's a good thing because you can drive harder for longer because it's not wearing you out in quite the same way it's just it's on your side the whole time the engine is it's really good it's got so much torque now they say the peak torque comes in at five and a half thousand rpm which is quite high but so much of it appears to be available the super sports car part of this GT car because it has to do so many things as a sports car a DB 11 a Bentley Continental GT on these roads bear in mind that this thing weighs about 1500 kilos so it's not the lightest McLaren by any stretch of the imagination and it's longer than any other McLaren and a bit wider but on roads like these like I say a DV 11 a Conti GT they would not see which way this car went you just don't feel the mass in the way you do those cars you always feel that you're constantly managing mass whereas this it almost feels like any other McLaren sports car as I say apart from that just that little soft edge that little bit of extra approachability it just does not appear to be fazed by anything this car just throw it at a corner feel the front end bite gradually load up the rear and away it goes yes yes I quite like this this is a way to get around I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I'm gonna save for the road this could be the best handling of Ferren send the abuse and the comments below for that one right time to put this boot to good use now McLaren say you can fit two sets of golf clubs in here but videographers don't travel light and besides I don't play golf so we're gonna pack our stuff up end up day 1 and we're gonna go find ourselves a cold beer until then I'll see you tomorrow after all the except of yesterday now comes obscenity boring big time is tight and there's a tollbooth tag in the McLaren's windscreen so we're gonna fight our way out of the Lance and then it's autoroute all the way from there okay so we've been in the McLaren now for quite a few hours five or six lots of motorway time to get get a feel for what it's like over a really long distance and I've got to say there's there's lots of good things here and also a few lots of good things niggle shall we say and the first thing driving position actually is really good it's not quite as low as you'd expect from a McLaren but I think that's to do with the fact you've got electric motors underneath the seats but it's really comfortable these seats which have been designed specifically for long-distance comfort are really good I've been in here for about five hours straight so far and no aches and pains steering's where you want it to be you know you can there's so much adjustment it's it's a really nice and comfortable place to be ride it's also pretty good on the motorway those proactive dampers do a really good job and it does do what my parents say that sort of parallel thing where the front and the back seem to move at the same time so you get this sensation the cars breathing with the road less impressive is the wind noise it noisy in here even at sort of Jean Dom friendly speeds is quite a lot of rustle coming around the a-pillars and the door mirrors a Bentley is a quieter car to be in it has to be said if you're doing lots and lots of long distances and you like near silence the Bentley's the car where the McLaren scores is the super sports card bit we did back in the mountains those really lovely Road ability is leagues beyond a DB 11 or a quantity T whereas the gap between it and those cars as a long-distance Cruiser is is there but it's not as big so it's all about balances and it compromise what do you want you want a really quick exciting car that's also pretty good on the motorway or do you want one that's really quiet and refined and okay on a back road I mean that's that's what for you to decide me you know it's it's a balance right so what else we got niggles well first big niggle is I wear polarized sunglasses and when I put them on I can't see anything on the infotainment screen it literally goes blank which for a car that's supposed to be cruising down at the South of France and glorious weather probably not a good thing I'm a little niggle maybe the glovebox it's got one of these touch sensitive releases which only works and the admissions on which I guess it's a security feature but when you're just about a guy out the car then you remember you left something in there big tear of taking to have to fumble for the key switch ignition back on just to get in the glove box like I say these are minor nickels nothing nothing major ok so another quirk is that luggage compartment now McLaren off seemed a play of saying that they managed to keep temperatures to around 40 degrees centigrade and while the car is moving at speed there's air flow doing it's cooling thing that does work but you work the car hard on something like ice our mountain roads or stop-start traffic and you do get heat so can we cut to the hotel all he discovered that most of his toiletries are basically turned to some hideous alien gloop one thing that has impressed on this car is the fuel consumption on the motorway now I know we shouldn't really be talking about fuel consumption but they turn at thousand pound McLaren but we've been cruising as I say Jean Dom friendly speeds and it's been returning anything between 35 and 30 MP which is pretty good for a 600 plus horsepower twin turbocharged v8 what is effectively a supercar of course it also did 7.7 mpg in the mountain so you know swings and roundabouts of course another real positive is the fit and finish in here in axe it's not traditional in the wooden leather GT style it's very McLaren but there is actually lots of level of soft leather on the doors dashboard and it looks and feels really nice the stitching is lovely and then there's lots of milled metal finish just gives the whole car kind of classy GT upmarket atmosphere they even change the paddles here so it's still got the same rocker mechanism but they've got this lovely solid metal and it just lovely cold to the touch and it looks looks right at a GT car the whole interior just feels special and surely that's part of being a GT car is to have a car that you get in and think this is nice talking the engine you don't really hear it as much now they've they have quite a bit down you get a bit of a low McLaren baritone when you open the throttle but the rest of the time is very muted what you don't get despite the low inertia turbos is that instant response in seventh gears so when they someone bolts you in traffic and then you want to suddenly go put your foot down and it just takes a while to pick up and then 2,000 rpm comes along then then it goes quite often it'll change down a couple of gears which you know it's not the end of the world but you'd expect a bit more flexibility from a GT so here we are at Calais finally made our way to the channel been a long old journey but actually feel remarkably refreshed can I get ourselves on the train first though and that could be a bit nip and tuck in this car here we are at last few meters of France gonna slide our way onto the train now so breathe in I'm sure it's gonna fit don't think about the forged alloy wheels don't think about them Oh actually oh look at this this is good they've put us on a train for special people like me extra fighter after half an hour on the train we're back in the UK the average speed camera patrolled and roadwork lifted m20 it's a stark contrast to the continental glamour of the past 48 hours but in the murky stop-start traffic we've still got those Mountain memories if you enjoyed this video don't forget to Like subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss out on another auto car video\n"