Bentley Continental GT review: A magnificent drive which may be the last of the 12-cylinder beasts

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The late Douglas Adams, so fondly remembered for his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, also wrote a less famous but similarly charming book, this time firmly planted here on Planet Earth. Last Chance to See was, as the title hints, a witty run-through of the world’s most endangered species, chronicling his adventures trying to track them down and gawp at them – before they were all gone.

That was three decades ago. As it happens most are still with us, if only just, but the Northern White rhino has disappeared from the wild, and the Yangtze dolphin has gone for good. Others, such as the mountain gorilla, the aye-aye – a primate found in Madagascar – and flightless New Zealand parrot the Kakapo are hanging on, but probably won’t see another decade: Terribly sad.

Though it might sound in poor taste, all things considered I feel much the same way about the new Bentley Continental GT as Adams did about his charismatic creatures. If you want to enjoy a 12-cylinder, six-litre, two-tonne, twin-turbo mobile monument to automatic excellence, you’d best get a wriggle on. Soon even the wealthy – and this is a £150,000-plus prospect for the exceptionally well heeled – will find themselves unable to run one of these, leastways in the west, as governments tax, restrict and ban their way to a carbon-free driving future.

There are elements of envy/social justice/environmental consciousness – you choose – in this war on the internal combustion engine. Probably, it’s justified. Yet an unrelenting war of attrition it is, and majestic animals such as the Continental GT are under critical threat of being wiped out. By 2030, if not sooner, cars like this may well be history, just like the dodo, the American passenger pigeon, and the Tasmanian tiger.

It is a moment to reflect on this curious car, with its 12 cylinders. That’s right, 12 cylinders. Most cars on the road boast a mere four. Posher cars have six cylinders, often arranged side by side in a V formation, and a few are blessed with V8s. The Bentley’s power plant is essentially two V6 motors mated together – a W12.

There aren’t many species like this Continental left. The Bentley’s VW group stablemates Audi and Lamborghini offer much the same unit; VW’s ultra-exotic Bugatti sports car boasts a mighty 16 cylinders; Mercedes-Benz, BMW – including Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin and Ferrari will also do you a 12-pot motor. But Jaguar, the American brands and everyone else gave up long since.

Now I am “woke” enough, as I believe the expression is, to realise the irony in what I’ve been saying – mankind’s profligate use of fossil fuels, among other sins, has driven unprecedented climate change and destroyed natural habitats.

Fair enough, but these big beasts are so uncommon they can’t be doing that much harm in the big scheme of things, compared to, say, all those hundreds of millions more mundane engines belching out soot. Such is the skill of its engineers, the Bentley is actually quite green, considering. Honestly. Not as green as a bus or train, I grant you, but given its dimensions, mass and formidable performance – a top speed three times the legal limit, where available – it is little short of a modern miracle to get more than 20 miles per gallon out of it, on average. There are smaller, cheaper cars that are much less efficient, on those terms.

Anyway, the GT is a magnificent drive. I hope you’ll forgive me for saying that. Its creators’ abiding achievement is to make such a large, luxurious car incredibly wieldy on twisty, entraining roads, and to leave almost anything else behind on the motorway. However, it pays to concentrate, just because it is so big. You must respect the GT, and if you do, it will respect you back. It’s like a kind of mighty mechanical eunuch, powerful but obedient. It even induces considerate behaviour toward other road users. You’ve really nothing to prove when you’re sat in one of these, and giving way to a milk float, and stopping for the lollipop person, comes naturally, an act of noblesse oblige, the instinct acquired through osmosis. The Bentley turns the coarsest of us into ladies and gentlemen.

Externally, it is dramatic, even more so than the previous two generations. They were butch enough, but this has a near-cartoonish air about it, the sort of car a superhero might enjoy on their day off. The lines are deeply, ripplingly muscular, and smothered in a deeply lustrous paint job, as if been dipped in a fondue. As is fashionable now – see the Audi Q8, Mercedes S-Class, contemporary Jaguars and Maseratis – the grille is extra large and wide. The headlights are like diamonds, appropriately for such a plutocraic machine, and the massive – 21 or 22in option – alloy wheels somehow don’t look overly bulky; because everything else is so massive, they stay in proportion. There’s more exquisite detailing around the exterior than before, which is good because its predecessors had slightly – slightly – bland faces, with the headlights too small and sunken, for example. This is the most handsome GT yet.

However, nothing prepares you for the sense of occasion as you enter. It glitters, shines and gleams like an Edwardian ballroom. There’s the light in the bottom of the door that projects a perfect iteration of the Bentley logo onto the road below at night, or in a garage. There’s leather enveloping you, quilted on the door panels, plain on the roof, sculpted on the seats, all infinitely adjustable and with a built in massage. Tighten the squab and the seats turn from clubland armchairs into Recaro-style racing seats, squeezing your thighs in.

There are highly polished fine wood veneers, hand stitching, knurled and machined rotary dials, heavy metal fitments for the door releases – all adding to the sensory experience. Yet it lets itself down on the odd detail. A few things feel plasticky, where they should be cool and metal, such as the otherwise gorgeous traditional “organ stops” for the air vents, and the rotary vents themselves.

But there is no mistaking the hand craftsmanship, the minutest flaws betraying human hands at work. It’s all lavish, and you can have as much bespoke stuff jammed in there as you like – as a 2+2 coupe, the rear passengers will have to put up with getting a bit squashed while they revel in the luxury.

The tech, as you’d expect, mostly works well, with the full set of advanced driver aids. With lane assist, adaptive cruise control and a very smooth automatic gearbox, the GT has an indulgent attitude towards “autonomous” driving. You don’t have to do much, and you feel pretty safe while you’re not doing it. Not feet up, but definitely relaxed.

What else? Too much to list, but you might well appreciate the “butler”, a lever that hands your seat belt to you over your shoulder when you’ve settled in – to be fair, Mercedes have been doing that for years; the biggest brakes on a production car that are good for bragging about and stop the monster without too much fuss; the night vision screen that allows you to “see” hazards ahead you won’t pick up with the naked eye. Most of all, there is the rumbling huge torque the engine generates, the key to its personality – the effortless, unstressed immediate delivery of power – something only exceeded in the legendary, traditional Bentley V8, as fitted to the Mulsanne limousine, a motor that traces its lineage back to 1959.

There were only two real bum notes during my GT symphony. Dotted around the place are modish union hack badges with a figure 1 worked into them. They’re odd, and bear no relation to any Bentley iconography. In fact they denote that this Bentley is a “first edition” of the new GT, a model, by the way, that has transformed Bentley’s fortunes since the first version arrived in 2003 – and on the second hand market today for around £27,000. It’s the kind of thing you expect to find on a Kia Rio or a Volvo XC40. It goes beyond the “bling” touches which seem to fit the Bentley quite well.

With all due respect, I can’t believe this is the kind of marketing gimmick is either appropriate or necessary for the GT. Notwithstanding the uncertain times we live in, the Bentley sells itself, surely?. And not just to professional footballers – who obviously, and genuinely, therefore, possess far better taste than they are often credited with. It’s really quite incongruous, like finding a bargain bin of Bulgari watches in the middle aisle at Lidl.

The other fault was even more annoying, though probably less permanent. The passenger side interior light just kept turning itself on and off, for no good reason. Let the side down, that.

In summary, then: This is your last chance to buy a new, proper 12-cylinder sports coupe. Already a – perfectly good – V8 has turned up as an option for the Continental GT, but more radical change is coming. In future, yes, there will still be finely crafted, hand built horseless carriages for the wealthy to specify to their tastes – but they will be hybrid and pure electric, and thus even quieter and more refined. This GT may well be the last of the 12-cylnder line. I was offered a last chance to witness this vulnerable beast, and I’m very glad I did.