Bentley Supersports convertible spied – Bentley's brute to lose its roof
The most driver-focussed Bentley yet is about to pop its top and will probably be just as exclusive
The ink is barely dry on our review of the hardtop limited-run Bentley Supersports, the most hardcore Continental GT yet. Now though, it seems Crewe is preparing a convertible version. These images show a prototype of such a variant testing at the Nürburgring.
On the one hand, lopping the roof and a wedge of torsional stiffness that then has to be replaced with weighty reinforcement out of a lightened, tautened, more focused version of a car seems antithetical. Then again, the Supersports is still a Bentley – it’s no GT3 RS rival. And the idea of a GTC that’s all-V8, without the battery and electric motors and indeed, without the front drive shafts, is an appealing one.
Indeed the recipe in the convertible should be familiar to that of the Supersports coupe, with a 657bhp and 590lb ft version of the ubiquitous 4-litre twin-turbo V8 working alone without electrical assistance, or the weight penalty therewith. It won’t however, retain the coupe’s title of being a sub-2-ton Bentley, as it is likely to gain something like (but potentially not exactly) the 170kg jump in weight that a Continental Speed GTC has over a coupe. Folding roof mechanisms, insulation and structural strengthening don’t come cheap.
The images of this prototype undergoing testing don’t indicate that much apart from the roof becoming fabric has changed about this Supersports. It has the same aero addenda below the belt line, with vortex-generating canards, enormous ducting for the brakes and heat exchangers flanking the front bumper, a sizable spoiler atop the boot lid and outsized Akrapovic exhaust tips.
We can also expect the Supersports convertible to, like the coupe, be a limited-run car. Just 500 coupes are being made available to buy and we expect the convertible will be the same. It’ll also likely cost even more than the £342,900 list price of the Supersports coupe too.
