Bentley Bentayga Speed

No W12, but an upgraded V8 and revised chassis make Bentley's latest Speed model more capable on road and off

- 

IT'S A FAMILIAR ROUTINE: THE ENGINE'S Sport mode is selected, the ESC system is slackened off. Left foot hard on the brake, right foot fully down on the throttle pedal until you feel it reach its stop. Hear the revs rise and stutter against a limiter that's far lower than the engine's red line. The engine note settles to a light roar, the exhaust bellows. Don't leave it too long or you'll need to start the process all over again. Now pull your left leg off the brake and hold on.

There's tyre scrabble against the loose service, a flare of revs, a thump from behind as the next gear hits home, and forward propulsion that feels a little out of place with the chrome-finished organ-stop ventilation controls poking out of the carbonfibre inlays — although not as out of place as throwing the new Bentley Bentayga Speed down a makeshift rally stage on a 9000-acre Montana ranch does. Still, at least there's little to hit if it all goes a bit ‘leaving a Cars & Coffee meet with more caffeine on board than talent’.

Bentley's new Bentayga Speed forgoes the W12 engine of its predecessor, a model that was not available to those outside of the US. In its place is a reworked version of the 4-litre twin-turbo V8 that’s found in the regular Bentayga models, including the S, the sportiest until now.

It's the same V8 used by most high-end VW Group models, from Audi's RS Q8 to Porsche's Cayenne and Lamborghini's Urus. For the Speed, Bentley replaces the pair of turbochargers with larger items and the fuel injection system has been changed for one with a higher flow rate. The compression ratio has also been lowered from 10.1:1 to 9.7:1 (the same as for the Urus’s V8) to allow an increase in boost pressure when those bigger turbos spool up.