Bentley teases new Continental GT – and it's a hybrid
The new Continental GT hybrid will be Bentley’s most powerful production car ever when it is revealed next month, and promises up to 50 miles of all-electric range.
Bentley says the new, fourth-generation Continental GT will use the company’s Ultra Performance Hybrid powertrain, which combines a new V8 engine with an electric motor. Total power output is 771 horsepower, Bentley says, while the torque figure lands at a nice, round 1,000 Nm, or 738 ft-lbs.
An accelerator figure hasn’t been published just yet, but with all-wheel-drive and electrical assistance – plus that mountain of torque – we expect the hybrid Continental GT to be Bentley’s quickest yet.
It’ll be efficient too, with Bentley claiming 50 miles of all-electric range and a CO2 figure of under 50 g/km using the WLTP test cycle. Although the electric range isn’t quite as impressive as the 75 miles of a plug-in Range Rover, it's a nice upgrade on the circa-25 miles the Bentley Bentayga hybrid can manage on battery power alone.
Bentley describes the new plug-in hybrid as its “most powerful and most dynamically capable” road car in its 105-year history. It’ll also be the most sustainable Bentley yet, the company claims, without going into detail.
Tech features include active all-wheel-drive with torque vectoring to shuffle power between the wheels, four-wheel steering to improve low-speed manoeuvrability and high-speed stability and an electronic limited slip differential. The car will also feature a 48-volt electric active ant-roll control system and new, dual-valve dampers.
Although camouflaged in Bentley’s first images, released today, we can see how the hybrid Continental GT shares much of its exterior design with the previous model – despite Bentley referring to the car as an all-new generation. We’ll be interested to see just how much has changed once the camp is removed, and what changes have been made to the interior.
Given the current car’s popularity – it is Bentley’s second best-selling model, behind the Bentayga SUV, and the 100,000th Continental GT will leave the factory in early 2025 – we doubt much will be changed, beyond the drivetrain.
Bentley says it will fully reveal the hybrid, fourth-generation Continental GT is June.
