GARAGE

BENTLEY CONTI GT · DACIA BIGSTER · JEEP WRANGLER · JAECOO 7 · MINI COUNTRYMAN · VOLVO EX30 · RICCI'S GARAGE · PORSCHE MACAN · VOLKSWAGEN ID.BUZZ · TOYOTA LAND CRUISER

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BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT

£254,200 OTR/£282,000 as tested/£5,077 pcm WHY IT'S HERE: What has a hybrid makeover - and Mulliner buffing - added to the world's best grand tourer? DRIVER: OLLIE KEW

IT'S 5AM, AND YOU JOIN ME AT home, prising myself out of bed 100 miles north of London. By lunchtime I need to be in the Belgian coastal town of Knokke, just north west of Bruges, to film a last minute video.

I'll detour via West Byfleet in Surrey to pick up videographer Jordan. Ideally, I'll be back home at a reasonable hour this evening, having dropped Jordan back home en route.

So, that's a total of 700-ish miles across three countries in around 15 hours. The first leg to Surrey is the worst stint. Heading south there's already too much traffic, too many smart motorways with schizophrenic signage, and several diversions around never ending roadworks. The first 100 miles take 150 minutes.

I concentrate on maximising the hybrid Conti's miles per gallon. Two jabs of the metal E-mode button instruct the car to hold its battery charge until later on. Otherwise it'd cruise down the A1 and M1 on electric, at speeds of up to 81mph.

To be fair, the Bentley is cleverer at managing this when using the inbuilt satnav. Once the car knows where it's going, it collaborates between the GPS, intended destination and the powertrain to manage where petrol is sipped and where batteries are discharged.

But like almost all OEM car nav systems, the Bentley's nav doesn't react as quickly to jams as an app like Google Maps or Waze. So my phone handles the route, and I manage the hybrid system myself.