ELECTRIFYING EXPERIENCE

Bentley's 4th-gen Conti GT gets a hybrid powertrain

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Exotic 2+2 sporting coupés hardly come any more different than the Bentley Continental GT and the Porsche 911, and yet Crewe seems to be following Stuttgart's philosophy as it develops its modern luxury grand tourer into its third decade.

Just as "all-new" model generations of the Porsche can be considered in pairs (the 2004 997 being a technical development of the 996, ditto the 2019 992 of the 991), Continental GTs have developed similarly. The second-generation GT of 2011 refined and improved the chassis of the 2003 original, and now the fourth generation has refined and improved the Porsche-developed platform and body of the third.

When, in 2023, Crewe announced the end of production of the W12 engine that powered the GT for so long, we all knew major change for the Continental series must be afoot. That change now manifests itself as the first plugin hybrid Continental GT Bentley has made and also its most powerful GT yet.

The car has taken on a new electronic architecture to facilitate that under-bonnet change; features a new active suspension system intended to extend its dynamic repertoire; and gets quite widely revised exterior styling and cabin technology, the former intended to sprinkle some of the stardust of the firm's ultra-rare limited-series cars the Bacalar and Batur on this seriesproduction model.

DESIGN & ENGINEERING

The easiest way to tell this fourth-generation Continental GT from its predecessors is literally staring you in the face. This is the first time since the 1950s that Bentley has dispensed with a quartet of headlights for a series-production model. The new GT's twin lamps have integrated "eyebrow" running lights, and different internal designs depending on the model.