Gadgetory

ah I've always admired the way that Bentley does performance it takes a giant engine it shoves it in a comfy squidgy beautifully made car and send it off into the world some of them have even topped 200 miles an hour but I've never viewed of Bentley as a supercar they're more a stunningly made armchair with a giant v8 or w12 under the cushion a Bentley is speedy craftsmanship the Bentley then is a car for the driver who cares not for a verte show but for understated go mostly because this Bentley isn't like its siblings it's a v8 s and the S adds a little edge one that might upset those of a traditional sensibility the regular VA Continental GT is a fine machine is 500 horses offer more power than you could possibly know what to do with and its exhaust is just the right side of anti-social it's a concession to hooliganism if ever there was one the S then is it sangria sibling the one that was picked on in school so feels like it has a little bit more to prove to make its point it's 10 millimeters lower than the regular car has stiffer Springs adjusted damping and fiddled with roll bar it's got the option to have some truly massive ceramic brakes and it's got an angry front splitter sills and rear diffuser its steering is now well suited to some very unbent liest driving as well there's more power here 521 horsepower that's 21 more than you get in the regular VA there's also more talk not that you need it there's now 502 pound-feet its 8-speed ZF gearbox has been fiddled with as well so now it'll cling onto gears for longer the extra power and twiki means naught to 60 takes 4.3 seconds in its top speed is 192 miles an hour and it does that despite way 2295 kilos that kind of thing doesn't really add up in your head it's like doing the hundred meters in less than ten seconds with a hippo strapped to each knee odd but very impressive there is one more party please lurking within the v8s that's the fact that it will apparently do 26.7 miles to the gallon really and it emits 246 g/km of carbon dioxide now for a car this fast and this big that's quite impressive that's all download to its engine it's a 4 litre turbocharged in it the same one you'll find in the audi rs6 for example and that's got a neat thing in it it's got cylinder shut off so when you're cruising it will turn off four of its cylinders until of course you plant your foot and then all eight of them spring into life and you use all of the fuel but still it's smart so far this Bentley appears to be distinctly unbent Li but at the same time it harks back to its DNA images of the Bentley boys ragging their cars to the very limits to Bentley's new gt3 racer spanking around a racetrack all fit here the VA s appears to be just that little bit more than the other cars in the range allow me to explain every other Bentley I've driven has been punishingly fast the v8 made a very nice noise but they've always felt very much like a Bentley and what that means is that everything has been very soft very squishy very comfortable very geared towards relaxation having a calm luxurious drive but when you want to you can just twitch your right foot and you'll fire yourself off into the distance whereas here there's just a little bit extra there's more going on you don't feel like you're hefting around too much you're not wrestling with this giant beast it dances with you it plays with you it it indulges you as you'd hope it would I said at the beginning I don't really think of Bentley as a supercar I'm going to stick to that I do think it is a beautifully upholstered way of going incredibly quickly however this feels more like a sports car than any Bentley I've ever driven this is the closest link you can get to their racing car the gt3 the mental thing that's been kicking ass all over the world but is this a grand tourer with some sports car bits on it or is this now a sports car with some grand tourer uses its found that middle ground that balance between being really good fun but also you don't have to turn it off you have to press any buttons for it to be the relaxing GT you want a Bentley to be you're just simply treated as such I like the regular v8 its noise power and loveliness made me go all tingly but i did find its drive incongruous where it had the pace of something pretty mental even in the hardest suspension setting it felt a little soft great for most people but I'm so awkward it put me off it a bit this though this is a fantastic bit of kick the S here doesn't simply mean have a bit more power and away you go no it means you get a better drive still very much a Bentley drive but a more engaging sharper one until the inevitable super sports appears this is the best handling Bentley you can throw money at and as usual for a Bentley a beautifully made one of that