A Glorious Drive – The 2025 Bentley Continental GT Speed
Let’s get the obvious out of the way, this is an extremely pleasant place to be. The car welcomes you like a prince into unlimited luxury. Understatement is the name of the game here, it’s a classically British car which wraps brawn with exquisite tailoring. Beautiful stitched leather integrates seamlessly with alcantara and combination of subtle lines and sumptuous curves and sublime seating for a divine driver experience.
We know the Continental GT, it’s been around for 20 years. Drive it and there’s no wonder it’s a favorite. This consummate GT has extreme comfort and extraordinary performance.
Bentley have provided steady updates for it however and this first hybrid edition really is distinctive with it’s wider grille and mascara swipe lights communicating its a brand-new all time classic. The exterior, muscular and purposeful, is understated. It always garners admiring looks yet few realize what this car is capable of.
This first edition Bentley Continental GT Speed is a plug-in hybrid – a distant sound of thunder from the four liter turbo, coupled with electric drive, it’s the first they’ve made. It’s also the fastest. The combined 567 kilowatts (771 hp) and 1000 newton meters of torque sedately sling this 2.45 ton monster up to the legal speed limit in just three point 3.2 seconds for a top speed of 335 kmh – incredible figures. And can it do those top speeds? Yes. Just last weekend I attended the New Zealand Land Speed Association annual event where drivers test their cars on a closed road. Despite serious competition, the fastest car present was the previous generation GT Continental, recording over 320 kph. This new GT Speed is 20% more powerful. There is no doubt it is one of the very fastest cars you can buy. It’s always launch ready, press the brake then throttle to full, let the brake go, and prepare for physics to rearrange your circulation. You might even say words like “Gosh darn”, “Gee Wizz” or “Crikey”.
It may have supercar performance, yet you don’t want to feel every bump and rattle on a road surface when you’re driving long distance as this car is designed for and so it calmly filters all that out. It just leaves you with a calm drive via active air suspension, radar controlled cruise control and of course total comfort. It ensures you relax on the journey, while the lane holding keeps you safe. Everything as expected darling. Progression is ever confident and never a fuss. And that’s down to a near 50/50 weight distribution, which just plants the car. Plus, the four wheel steer and electric anti-roll means it corners like it’s on rails, and still maintains composure. Standard driving mode, ‘Bentley’ mode, takes care of everything for you – and defaults to electric wherever possible, especially at low speed, for comfort and quiet. Then select Sport for maximum output through four wheel drive. Road holding is fabulous. You feel its weight under braking and heavy cornering, but this is not a sports car. I mean, it will outperform just about all of them, but that’s not its point. The point is to enjoy the journey – and that’s very easy to do. It’s actually very easy to make a car go fast these days, so there’s much more to a good car than outright speed and the Bentley Continental GT speed delivers here. The four wheel steering is quite the revelation, meaning you can get this enormously long car round and some very tight gaps in and around town.
Big screens have put luxury car makers in a quandary: Are giant touch screens luxury or not? Bentley has taken a smart approach putting all ventilation and essential functions on physical controls. You can still adjust most functions from the screen as well, if you wish, I like that. They’re not telling you what to do – you get a choice. Driver instruments are all digital. That’s the case on almost all cars these days and while there’s nothing as classy as an analog dash, Bentley have done a superb job here, matching function with sophisticated form all and the dash is reasonably adjustable while keeping it classy – and when you turn it hides its console screen. My favorite driver setting was night vision. I didn’t get to test it out In the dark, but what a great addition to safety. The dash does feature a swoop of piano black. Handsome, but not my favorite material, because it’s forever dusty and at times harshly reflective. It’s great for a showroom, but on a morning drive, the parabolic dash focused the sun on my eyes. That’s the only criticism I’ve got, apart from that, it might be the best car I’ve driven, and I’d probably put up with the reflective bits to have something that’s otherwise so good. One of the many clever things it does is activate the brake lights when you’re regen-braking. It’s managing all that for you. Same as the ventilation. We just put it on smart mode, and it makes good decisions to keep you in a state of optimum comfort.
The multi way, adjustable, massaging, ventilated seats and form fitting armchairs designed to nurture you for the long drive yet hold you tight when it matters exterior wise. You’d expect a car of this calibre to handle the finer details. The active headlights adjust automatically to avoid dazzling oncoming traffic. Every connectivity option is at your fingertips. There’s so much driver assistance, I’d be here all day listing it. Cameras everywhere, keeping you safe, keeping you informed. Many of the controls are metal, including the mode, the volume roller for the supreme Naim stereo, paddles, organ stop air controls and vents and many more. Multizone mood lighting, while non essential, is a nice touch, I set it up to match the stylish yellow line and stitching throughout the cabin. Then, of course, there’s Bentley’s bespoke program. You can tailor the look to your exact specifications. And, if you’re so inclined, they’ll even create matching luggage. It’s that level of attention, that bespoke touch, that truly sets this car apart.
Plugin hybrid really is a brilliant drivetrain, giving you the best of both. Performance luxury really suits electric assist due to its immediacy and effortlessness. No one buys a Bentley for fuel economy, incredibly, the hybrid delivers here too with impressive figures for a large car. It will plug in to any charger, and it comes with a comprehensive charging pack for your home, plus adapters for other locations. With a vehicle like this, you’re almost certainly going to install a home charger. Then with a comprehensive electric range up to 80 km, round town trips on the clean stuff can save petrol for the fun stuff.
I can say this is one of the best cars I’ve ever driven. It’s faster, better, handling, more beautiful and provides positive surprises on the upside every time. It’s just beautiful. It just did the things that I wanted it to do. I drove distance, B roads, around town, the waterfront. I went to events and on dates. It excelled in every setting. It exhibited a confidence of road holding while still providing driver feedback in A way that leaves you alert.It was a joy. Speed by name and speed by nature. Yet however you drive it, it’s superb and immensely pleasurable, and probably the best car you’ll ever drive.