Gadgetory

you had made a car called the Riviera but Bentley kind of is the Riviera let's take a ride in a car with as much class as it has sat because it's an ex model the Bentley Continental GT Convertible v8s and check the tap what makes this car an ass for as a standard GT continental with a drop-top s starts with more power we'll take a look at that under the hood in a moment look at the subtle body kit around the chin and around the lower sides of the vehicle not too extreme but that's different you've also got a sports suspension sport calibrated steering which we'll try out on the road in a minute and a 10 millimeter lower ride height just barely it's also got some really hot looking 20-inch open spoke wheels these I'm afraid are not them this is another optional wheel that's a little more Miami Beach than Kapton 10 oh do I talk now I think just sit here all day sleep have a nice clear ass this is a fantastic place to spend time Oh nice to drive to but I'd be happy to just sitting in front of my house doing my work it's a beautiful living room in this car I don't use that term ridiculously it is comfortable spacious nicely appointed Bentley does that with exceptional taste the technology is not quite so cutting edge good but there's nothing that's going to be telling you about the cutting edge of where the industry is going you've got kind of your usual stuff your radio settings are here with satellite am/fm your media choices include an optical disk you've got 15 gigabytes of hard drive space that no one really cares about so all this stuff you're looking at here it's kind of you could have seen in one of my videos three or four years ago nothing cutting edge but notice how big everything is and clear I give Bentley kudos on that they have a unique proprietary interface here that is impossible to miss touch all the zones and buttons are nice and big and that's important in a car they've also done a pretty good job of making it look like the car that every car maker does that the typefaces for example are actually common between the gauges and the LCD I can't tell you how many car makers drop the ball on that one what you won't find anywhere in here is any kind of connected services no app support this is a few years back now I don't know we talk about audio systems you know they all sound pretty good these days I stopped picking them apart a couple years ago but this one I'm gonna talk about this is what they call name audio for Bentley name is a high-end British audio maker that Bentley's got an exclude with well that's a great amps and ESP and all that but the key thing is over there on the door that speaker looks normal but behind that grill is something flat like a pancake it's called a balanced mode radiator it moves on a piston electromagnetically like a speaker for good bass but being flat it doesn't aim the high frequencies like a laser shot so they tend to disperse over the cabinet this is a great sounding sound system coming from someone who is not that impressed that often now the last thing I want to talk about are Drive control technologies your shifters pretty traditional beautiful traditional PRN D and then sport kick it to the right for a shifting gait you can also shift up here on the paddles but they're missing half the paddle they cut off the bottom half I don't get the logic of this because most drivers are down here on the bottom hemisphere of their wheel these days nothing to reach for you can't get a shift until you go back to old school 10:00 and 2:00 like you were taught in high school and finally you've got a suspension button here this little shock absorber icon press that and you get to a screen that has four touchscreen ride control settings but why is it a two-step dance to get there just give me a knob from comfort to sport that's bad interface before we head to the engine bay just take a note at all the stuff here that's kind of real and in many cases metal this is a nice cold metal shifter these are metal organ poles to open and close these vents around the car quilted leather up here ah and the coup de gras or the coup de stupid is this perhaps the most beautifully rendered sunglass case in all of auto 'dom this tells you what kind of folks buy Bentley's they spend a lot of money on their fashion eyewear I want a nice place to put it now one of the front of the Bentley you're gonna find an old friend of ours you watched our video on the Audi rs7 you might recognize the top of this engine unusual architecture the turbos and the exhaust manifold apparatus are on top inside the V cylinder Valley intakes are on the outside kind of under this is the four liter twin-turbo motor of the VW Audi Bentley family and it's a heck of an engine some numbers 521 horse that's 21 more than an on s car 501 foot-pounds of torque that's 15 foot-pounds more 0 to 60 and 4.5 only at point two seconds faster than an on s car but we'll see how it really translates on the road and that's really impressive considering this car is a beast 5,400 pounds plus before you and your friends get in all-wheel drive by the way with a forty sixty front rear split that eats meat automatics your only choices we saw the mpg is not actually bad 14:24 yet it still gets it with a gas guzzler tax of a grand not much on the car of this pricey the nice thing about the S car is that it actually adds just enough of an extra edge in terms of the way it operates in sport mode of this car isn't this big ponderous beast if you look at this vehicle it's got a lot of mass a lot of physical presence it's the color of a beluga whale I mean it has all kinds of external cues that say wow what a big pledgie ride that is but it's not it's fairly sharp while being utterly comfortable in sport mode three things primarily take place you're going to get sharper shifts they're gonna hold rpms longer in automatic mode and you're going to get more aggressive tip in on the throttle and you get this great sound out of the sport exhaust which is optional but how does it sound good not overly obnoxious good and ballsy but still with an elegance good that befits the car I love listening to this but listen to Bentleys concerto in E minor that first movements pretty good the adaptive suspension as I mentioned follows a different set of controls than the power train sport mode it doesn't make a huge difference this car never gets a hard really gutsy ride it stays comfortable and luxurious at all times but it does seem to level out body roll adjust a bit it's an adaptive air suspension so it's got that ability rather innately and when it's not doing sport duty it's doing excellent Road modulation duty this is one of the most comfortable well damped luxury car rides out there not flabby but not a bit of harsh annoyance comes through the Big Bang Can Dance I got to tell you I don't mind taking this contra corners it likes it so the line I'll get this price our big beautiful friend here starting at about 224 an S Convertible and that by the way includes a gas guzzler tax and a very stout destination charge of almost 2,800 bucks after that interestingly the options that appeal to me are kind of cheap the most expensive is the optional sport exhaust it sounds great and it's about 2,500 bucks which is way less than the destination charge neck warmer technology great for a convertible just over a grand a power trunk I mean come on under $1,000 and massage and ventilation in the front seats is only 900 bucks more these prices are nothing compared to the base price they're being added to I'm almost puzzled by it all in about 225 seen that style there's not a ton of tech options you could add in this vehicle as you can see