Welcome to San Francisco: A Bentley Continental GT Speed Road Test

As we embarked on our journey with the Bentley Continental GT Speed, one question echoed in our minds - what kind of car is this? On the surface, it appears to be an ultimate long-distance touring machine, but its open design also suggests that it may prioritize style over substance. However, Bentley assures us that this is actually the fastest open four-seater in the world, and we set out to find out if it lives up to its claims.

Our first test subject was skiing. We ascended 8,000 feet up a mountain to experience the car's capabilities on snow. The result was overwhelmingly positive - the Bentley performed admirably, thanks to its four-wheel drive and winter tires. However, we soon realized that the small boot size would limit our ability to transport luggage or skis, rendering it impractical for serious off-road excursions.

As we left the hustle and bustle of San Francisco behind and ventured into the middle of nowhere, we found ourselves in a perfect setting to test the Bentley's capabilities on long-distance drives. The car's air flow management proved to be exemplary, providing an improvement in ride quality over its predecessor. Moreover, when cruising on a sunny day like today, it becomes incredibly hard to think of anything better than being behind the wheel of this magnificent machine.

Handling is undoubtedly one of the Bentley's strongest suits. By any standard, we can confidently say that this 2.5T convertible handles remarkably well - stable and responsive, with steering that feels both precise and enjoyable. However, it's essential to note that by another standard, which would be the ultimate benchmark of handling performance in the world of supercars, there's no way this car could match up. Nevertheless, as a practical and comfortable grand tourer, its handling is more than satisfactory.

Our final destination was Death Valley, one of the hottest and lowest places on Earth, where we aimed to test the Bentley's capabilities at extreme temperatures and in environments with remarkably straight and quiet roads. We soon discovered that the car's power output may not be as perceivable when accelerating from a standstill, given the significant amount of momentum required to get moving. Nevertheless, once speeds reach 60 or 70 mph, it becomes clear what 616 horsepower really feels like.

One thing we didn't expect to find was how this car would stack up against its rivals in terms of overall capability. Upon reflection of our journey, it's evident that although the Bentley Continental GT Speed may not excel in every single area across a wide spectrum of driving conditions and experiences, it is without doubt an incredibly capable car. In fact, what we've discovered on this remarkable road test has left us with one realization - this fantastic grand tourer is going to be missed when we return to England.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to San Francisco where today you find us armed with this Bentley Continental GTC speed and a problem that problem being that I'm not entirely sure what kind of car this thinks it really is it is a Bentley so you'd expect it to be some kind of ultimate longdistance touring machine but on the other hand it's also an open Bentley which says to me that this is a car which may well be more about show than go then again Bentley says that this is actually the fastest open four seater in the world so what we're going to do is head out over the Golden Gate Bridge and into America in search of deserts Mountains snow City anything really which might be able to shed some light onto the true car character of this car so is it any good to take ski well we are now 8,000 ft up a mountain to find out what it is like in snow and it's really very good it has four-wheel drive and a nice set of dun lot winter tires on it however the problem is that the boot is so small we can barely get our own Luggage in it let alone a set of skis so in theory yes in practice probably not so we've been driving for most of the day now we've left the hubub of San Francisco and the West Coast many hundreds of miles behind us and what we're doing is driving into the middle of nowhere and if you're going to do that on these sorts of Roads the Bentley is absolutely brilliant the way that they have managed the airf flow over the car the Improvement in the ride quality of its predecessor really shows that despite the fact that it looks quite simp Bentley has done some serious and proper work here and in fact if all you're going to do is this which is cruise on a wonderful sunny day like today it really is quite hard to think of anything at all that you'd rather be in than this next question how does it handle this is after all a Bentley we're talking about well by one standard at least I think it handling is pretty remarkable that standard being what you might expect a 2 and a/ half T convertible to handle like it's very stable it steers very nicely you might even go so far to say as it's quite good fun by another standard the ultimate standard of the best handling cars in the world there is no way it could measure up with that weight and this configuration uh by those standards it's still a good handling car but it's not the reason you're going to buy one so now we've come down out of the mountain back down to sea level below sea level in fact to here Death Valley which is the both the hottest and the lowest place in the entire United States and we're here really because it's one of the few places where the roads are sufficiently straight and sufficiently quiet to be able to exercise a car like this properly without too much undue interference from the forces of the law the funny thing with this car is you know you read the material and it tells you it has 600 116 horsepower but when you put your foot down from rest despite the fact that it gets to 60 MPH apparently in 4.1 seconds it doesn't actually feel that quick you feel the momentum that the car needs to gather first before it'll really get going there's quite a lot of inertia to overcome but once you get the speeds up to 60 70 or some more unpublishable speeds and then put your foot down that is when you feel what 616 horsepower really feels like so what about here on the Las Vegas Strip triffle 2 obvious perhaps 3 days ago back in San Francisco I to say it feels like about 3 weeks ago I thought this car would probably come across as a jack of all trades not as good-looking as some in the class not as fun to drive as others and now I guess you could say that's the case but what this amazing journey of nearly 1,000 miles has taught me is that although it may not lead the class in any individual area across the whole broad spectrum of abilities and out there in the reasonably real world it is a fantastically capable car and one thing I did not expect right now faced with going back to England this is a car I'm going to misswelcome to San Francisco where today you find us armed with this Bentley Continental GTC speed and a problem that problem being that I'm not entirely sure what kind of car this thinks it really is it is a Bentley so you'd expect it to be some kind of ultimate longdistance touring machine but on the other hand it's also an open Bentley which says to me that this is a car which may well be more about show than go then again Bentley says that this is actually the fastest open four seater in the world so what we're going to do is head out over the Golden Gate Bridge and into America in search of deserts Mountains snow City anything really which might be able to shed some light onto the true car character of this car so is it any good to take ski well we are now 8,000 ft up a mountain to find out what it is like in snow and it's really very good it has four-wheel drive and a nice set of dun lot winter tires on it however the problem is that the boot is so small we can barely get our own Luggage in it let alone a set of skis so in theory yes in practice probably not so we've been driving for most of the day now we've left the hubub of San Francisco and the West Coast many hundreds of miles behind us and what we're doing is driving into the middle of nowhere and if you're going to do that on these sorts of Roads the Bentley is absolutely brilliant the way that they have managed the airf flow over the car the Improvement in the ride quality of its predecessor really shows that despite the fact that it looks quite simp Bentley has done some serious and proper work here and in fact if all you're going to do is this which is cruise on a wonderful sunny day like today it really is quite hard to think of anything at all that you'd rather be in than this next question how does it handle this is after all a Bentley we're talking about well by one standard at least I think it handling is pretty remarkable that standard being what you might expect a 2 and a/ half T convertible to handle like it's very stable it steers very nicely you might even go so far to say as it's quite good fun by another standard the ultimate standard of the best handling cars in the world there is no way it could measure up with that weight and this configuration uh by those standards it's still a good handling car but it's not the reason you're going to buy one so now we've come down out of the mountain back down to sea level below sea level in fact to here Death Valley which is the both the hottest and the lowest place in the entire United States and we're here really because it's one of the few places where the roads are sufficiently straight and sufficiently quiet to be able to exercise a car like this properly without too much undue interference from the forces of the law the funny thing with this car is you know you read the material and it tells you it has 600 116 horsepower but when you put your foot down from rest despite the fact that it gets to 60 MPH apparently in 4.1 seconds it doesn't actually feel that quick you feel the momentum that the car needs to gather first before it'll really get going there's quite a lot of inertia to overcome but once you get the speeds up to 60 70 or some more unpublishable speeds and then put your foot down that is when you feel what 616 horsepower really feels like so what about here on the Las Vegas Strip triffle 2 obvious perhaps 3 days ago back in San Francisco I to say it feels like about 3 weeks ago I thought this car would probably come across as a jack of all trades not as good-looking as some in the class not as fun to drive as others and now I guess you could say that's the case but what this amazing journey of nearly 1,000 miles has taught me is that although it may not lead the class in any individual area across the whole broad spectrum of abilities and out there in the reasonably real world it is a fantastically capable car and one thing I did not expect right now faced with going back to England this is a car I'm going to miss\n"