There is no longer a Bentley in my life, and I am sad. Unless I give in to all those crypto-bro ads the algorithm beams my way thrice a day or it turns out I’m distantly related to one of the Great Train Robbers who happened to stash the unfound loot in my grandad’s back garden… I’m unlikely to daily-drive a Bentley ever again. It was an unmitigated pleasure.
In the final days of the Bentley’s loan, I wanted to enjoy those last two letters of its name one more time: GT. This car was excellent at commuting, at wafting around town on its seamlessly integrated electric half, and if I’m completely honest, at showing off just a little. It caught more than one Audi S3 fanatic napping with how unreasonably fast it is – people just don’t expect something that looks this gentlemanly, this refined and raffish, to be so brutally, hilariously rapid.
But like I mentioned when the Conti had to get me from Lincolnshire to Belgium and back via Surrey in a single day, its true superpower is the effortlessness with which it shrinks distances. How a combination of its cocooning, isolated cabin, long-legged ride and sheer heft simply soak up the pressures, strain and angst of driving. That’s what I wanted to revel in one last time. It’s possibly the last of the true grand-tourers.
Yes, the nights were drawing in, the balmy summer was long-gone and the leaves had turned a rusty orange and began to coat the road in mulch. But a weekend in Champagne country was the ideal cheerio to Bentley ‘ownership’.
Eurotunnel were kind enough to offer a Flexiplus spot on a Friday train. I like this option over the ferry because in a decade of taking someone else’s cars to the continent I’ve never had a bad experience on Le Shuttle. I still think the fact you can point your car to Folkestone at almost any time of day, drive onto a railway carriage and be towed under the actual sea to a different country is one of the engineering wonders of the world.
Perhaps that’s because Britain’s modern relationship with Europe is so fraught, and because modern Britain is laughably terrible at infrastructure. It seems like something from a distant age, like the Clifton suspension bridge or St Pancras station. Could we do the Channel Tunnel today? Could we sign it off, fund it, build it? I doubt it.
But because the Chunnel has been chugging back and forth for thirty years, the carriages are feeling their age – especially in width. They were fine in the mid-1990s but cars are ENORMOUS now. Bentleys, to be fair, always have been.
So I requested travel in a ‘tall vehicle’ carriage with wider accommodation. These were originally designed for big trucks, but these days you regularly find them populated with SUVs and supercars, desperate to avoid a kerbed wheel.
Eurotunnel’s marketing boss Mark Spinks explains new rolling stock is on the way. The intermediate plan is to ‘facelift’ the current trains by the late 2020s, to freshen them up inside. They’ll then soldier on for another decade and a half until all-new trains are built sometime in the 2040s.
It strikes me that the Eurotunnel train is a giant electric train set, and therefore wouldn’t it be great if that power could be harnessed to charge EVs and PHEVs. “The engineers say it’s not impossible, but it’s very, very difficult,” Mark explains. “They’re the experts – I’m not an engineer. But essentially if you’ve got a train with 400 vehicles on-board, all charging at once, and to also need to power two locomotives, and all the lights, the safety systems… it’s a big power draw.”
Hopefully my jaded pessimism about modern infrastructure is misplaced, because being able to cruise below the sea bed while adding range would be terrifically useful. The Bentley only has half a charge left to aid the journey to Troyes. It’ll settle into its usual economy of 34 miles per gallon (when averaged out with a full battery charge). By regularly plugging in, this Conti GT was 10mpg better on fuel than the W12 example we tested five years ago.
On the French autoroutes the Bentley once again relaxes into its comfort zone. Great ride, terrific sound system, fabulous refinement, limitless power, surprising efficiency. It’s also an excellent place to spend time because it’s so tactile inside. Yes there’s a touchscreen, but it’s a good one. And you get buttons for heating, massage, volume, list scrolling, map zooming, mirror adjustment, and so on. And when you don’t want the screen any more, push a button and it rotates away into the dashboard.
The only issue of any sort the Continental threw up in its three months at TG were oddly moulting floor mats, which seemed to generate clumps of fluff without ever becoming threadbare. Maybe they’re alive? Maybe they need shearing every month? I wouldn’t know. I’m not a Bentley Mulliner owner. I was once, for a short time. And nothing disappointed.
I guess the interesting epitaph is where Bentley’s electrification goes from here. The EV arrives in 2026 into a market which really doesn’t seem to want high-end luxury EVs. The Supersports is the first high-performance car based on a PHEV base product to be brave enough to bin off plug-in ability entirely, in the name of saving weight.
But that doesn’t mean going hybrid was the wrong call for the Conti. It’s still a rocketship, but even more serene. It’s better balanced than the W12 was. Naysayers in the TG team reckon there’s nothing ‘luxury’ about plugging in and it cheapens the experience, but is filling with petrol any less glamourous? Happens less often when there’s electricity helping out.
You know a car is very special indeed when rivals give up and move on. It’s why Toyota and MG gave up trying to emulate the Mazda MX-5. It’s why no-one directly targets the Porsche 911 GT3. It’s just too good. And if you want a GT car, the Aston Martin DB12 has gone sporty, the Ferrari 12Cilindri is a highly-strung spaceship and the Mercedes S-Class Coupe is gone altogether. Because it’s Bentley, and this car, which have nigh-on perfected the grand tourer.
