The New Bentley Continental GT Will Be the Marque’s Most Powerful Car Ever
What the new Bentley Continental GT is losing in cylinders, it’s making up for in power.
The British luxury marque revealed on Thursday that the upcoming fourth generation of its commanding coupé will be the most powerful vehicle in its history despite trading its W-12 for a plug-in hybrid V-8. The new powertrain will also give the two-door a significant chunk of electric-only range.
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Bentley actually undersold its new plug-in Ultra Performance Hybrid powertrain at its unveiling last week. At the time, the company said the setup, which pairs a V-8 mill with an electric motor, would make “more than 740 hp.” That number was enticing, but also unspecific. Now, though, we know exactly how powerful the first iteration of the powertrain will be.
As part of the first official tease of the new Continental GT, the automaker revealed that its electrified powertrain will produce 771 horses and 737 ft lbs of torque. That’s significantly more potent than the previous most powerful version of the nameplate, the current-gen Speed, which comes with a W-12 that makes 650 hp and 665 ft lbs of torque. It’s also more powerful than the coachbuilt Batur coupé and convertible, which have W-12s that make 740 hp and 738 ft lbs of torque. That means the Continental GT will be the most powerful road car in the company’s 105-year history.
We now know how powerful Bentley’s new hybrid V-8 is, but that’s about it. We’re still waiting to find out how big the combustion engine will be, where the electric motor will be located, and whether its increased output will translate to improved performance (we’re guessing yes on that one). It’s also unclear how much weight the new hardware, including the battery that feeds the motor, will add to what is already a heavy car at around 5,000 pounds. The trade-off for any added pounds will be that the battery will give the car an all-electric range that comes out to around 50 miles, though, which we imagine could prove to be quite useful.
Luckily, we won’t have to wait much longer for those answers. Bentley says the new Continental GT will make its full debut next month. Expect to see the Ultra Performance Hybrid powertrain spread quickly through the brand’s lineup. The marque has backed off previous plans to go all-electric by 2030, but still wants all the vehicles it sells to electrified vehicles by the end of 2026.
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