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Our day with new Bentley GT We get absolute hands-on attending at adapted Continental GT
It’s the bare of the new Bentley Continental GT, and anybody is invited! In a apple first, Bentley has appear its all-new cool auto reside on the internet – acceptance admirers to attending at the car from a array of altered angles, central and out, all via a reside video feed. And Auto Express was accepted absolute back-stage admission to the car and Bentley’s accomplished of exoteric design, Raul Pires, just a few canicule afore the cameras starting rolling.

“We had three key goals for this car – to advance the proportions, to accomplish the signature curve added abreast and to accord the car a added bespoke, handmade feel,” Pires explained. Get up close, and the Continental’s aciculate new attending is anon apparent – every console is new except the addition mirrors, which are adopted from the Mulsanne.

Thanks to a new cutting-edge action accepted as aluminium cool forming, the able-bodied bodywork has been accustomed a bluff edge. All the above affection lines, abnormally the cast rear caster arches are crisper and added defined, smartening up the coupe’s appearance. Whereas afore the GT featured a animate beanie and artificial bonanza arrangement, now the absolute foreground addition is fabricated from one individual area of metal.

“This proces is added big-ticket and added time consuming, but with a low-volume car like this it’s accessible to try new things.” said Pires.

The arty foreground grille now sits added cocked and 40mm lower, acceptance the sculpted beanie to fit snugly amid the billowing foreground caster arches. The four headlight blueprint is familiar, but now anniversary of the lamps appearance jewel-like LEDs surrounding the capital bulb. A added track, foreground and rear, as able-bodied as the double-elipse LED taillights that blanket about the corners of car add to the GT’s already absorbing width, while the acme and breadth abide almost the same. And for the aboriginal time 21-inch auto are offered as an option, in either ‘Elegant’ or split-rim ‘Sports’ design.

As with all Bentleys the devil is in the detail, and Pires was agog to point out some of the car’s bigger points: “This car has the atomic bulk of chrome account of any archetypal in the range, but it all has a function. The abrading strips on the ancillary of the car are now protruding, to advice anticipate rock chips on the rear caster arch.” Added able touches cover headlight washers congenital into the ablaze accumulation and no shut curve active through the rear lights – both to actualize a less-cluttered surface.

On the inside, the hand-crafted autogenous has been reworked for even greater affluence and functionality. The across-the-board dashboard mimics the wings on the Bentley badge, while every apparent is akin in metal, soft-touch covering or copse veneers. Under foot, deep-pile carpets addition abundance levels even further. New ‘Cobra’ architecture seats are anniversary 25kg lighter and added bunched than the ones they replace, absolution up an added 46mm of legroom for rear passengers.

A new cutting-edge infotainment suite, something -to-be barter accepted according to Pires, includes an eight-inch touchscreen to ascendancy the car’s audio system, telephone, abeyance settings and latest sat-nav arrangement with seven-digit postcode ascribe and 30GB congenital harder drive. An eight-speaker complete arrangement is offered as standard, while an 11-speaked Naim bureaucracy can be specified.

“The abundant affair about Bentley is that we amalgamate sportiness and affluence like no added brand,” Pires reminded us. From our time with the car it’s bright that the newcomer ticks the box apparent ‘luxury’, but what about the sportiness?

For the aboriginal time Continental GT barter will be offered a best of two high-performance engines – an bigger adaptation of the accepted W12 unit, accessible from October and costing about £130,000, and an all-new 4.0-litre V8 with 40 per cent lower CO2 emissions, on auction in backward 2011.

Packing an added 15bhp and 50Nm of torque, the revised 6.0-litre twin-turbo W12 now produces a astounding absolute of 567bhp and 700Nm of torque. This added power, and a weight extenuative of 65kg compared to the approachable car, advice the newcomer to dart from 0-62mph in 4.6 abnormal – two tenths quicker – and on to a top acceleration of 198mph.

Transmitting all that ability to the auto is a uprated adaptation on the six-speed ZF Quickshift transmission. Shift times are cut by bisected to just 200 milliseconds, while it can now jump two ratios at a time on downshifts and automatically bleep the burke for absolute rev-matching and smoother changes. The car’s four-wheel drive arrangement has aswell been tweaked from a 50:50 ability split, to a 40:60 front-rear bent for a added activating active experience.

According to Pires this car is “an change of the revolution,” which is no bad thing. In the endure seven years Bentley has awash added examples of the first-generation car than it did in absolute over the antecedent 90 years. So by cautiously adorning and convalescent an already acceptable formula, it appears Bentley has a affirmed success on its hands.