CONTI SUPERSPORTS IS BACK AS HARDCORE GT

Lightest Bentley since 1940 is a rear-drive two-seater with 657bhp V8

- WILL RIMELL

The Bentley Continental Supersports has returned as a 657bhp V8-powered, two-seat, rear-wheel-drive tourer that is said to be the most dynamic car Crewe has produced to date.

The new limited-run flagship will go on sale in March next year priced at around £400,000, a significant increase from the current range-topping GT Speed's £237,000 starting point. Bentley will build 500 examples.

Codenamed Project Mildred (after 1920s endurance racer Mildred Mary Petre) during its closely guarded 12-month development, the new Supersports also marks the start of a push by Bentley to create “more extreme cars”, said CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser.

It is based on the current Continental GT but is “so different” from that car, said Walliser, and has set a number of firsts for road-going Bentleys. For example, it is the first rear-wheel-drive Continental, it is fitted with the largest front splitter of any production Bentley in history, and it offers the most downforce of any road car to leave Crewe.

A rival – in specification rather than price – to the £200,000 Aston Martin DB12 S, the new Supersports has been revealed 100 years after the 3 Litre Super Sports was launched – the first Bentley to wear the nameplate. It has since adorned the 2009 first-gen and the 2017 second-gen Conti GT, which each drew power from a 6.0-litre W12.

But while the badge has previously been used to denote the most powerful member of Crewe’s stable, in an age of electrification and 1000bhp EVs the new Supersports has instead been created to be what Walliser calls “the most driver-focused Bentley yet”.