Bentley Continental GT (2011-2018) review – ride and handling
A great grand tourer but definitely no sports car
The Bentley Continental GT does an impressive job of masking it’s hefty 2320kg kerb weight, offering up a cosseting and comfortable ride that is more than befitting of the Bentley badge.
At low speed, there are a few issues with secondary ride, where repeated lumps and bumps can make themselves known, but get up to pace and it’s a different story.
The Bentley’s air suspension offers four different settings going from ultra-soft to fairly stiff. In the softest of settings, the car boasts excellent ride comfort, but driven at speed all the roll and pitch can become slightly unnerving. Stiffen the car up however and body control is good, allowing the Bentley to cleverly mask its vast size.
Braking performance is impressive, particularly from the vast carbon ceramic brakes. The 420mm front and 356mm discs, along with eight-piston callipers at the front, are the largest ever to be fitted to a production car. It definitely shows, with the Continental GT capable of hauling its enormous mass to a stop in the shortest of possible space.
To drive, the Bentley isn’t as engaging as you might expect. The steering lacks feel and doesn’t do a good enough job of letting you know exactly what the front end of the car is up to. While the capabilities of the car are clearly high, it’s difficult to trust them when nothing is letting you know when the front end will give up grip.
As such, the Continental GT is much better suited to the ‘GT’ part of its name badge. This is a comfortable cruiser with massive accelerative performance, but cornering abilities a long way off some of the smaller and more sleek GT competitors.
Either way, it's never anything other than an event, with the GT combining massive performance with everyday usability into one highly addictive package.
