Bentley Supersports review: a luxury missile that thrills on track
This is a Continental GT whose combustion engine actually starts when you press the ‘engine start’ button, needless to say – and then makes a fair bit of noise. In Sport mode especially, it gurgles, burbles and snarls as you load it up and let it rev. It is, honestly, gladdening to the ear, whether it’s just idling or hulking and heaving its way, through the top of fourth gear, up to Laguna Seca’s corkscrew corner.
All it lacks, really, is that extra bit of operating range really special performance cars typically have – that magic last 1000rpm, if you like. Instead, you’re snagging an upshift at 6000rpm, rather than wringing every last rpm out as you might in a really great GT-department Porsche or M-division BMW.
The eight-speed gearbox swaps cogs very agreeably. It does so quickly and positively enough on track in manual mode, except for the odd occasion when it refuses a downshift close to the redline and you have to ask all over again. At bumbling pace, we know, it works eerily smoothly too, apart from the occasional bit of hesitancy when engaging drive or reverse.
Does the car feel outright fast enough for the money? Honestly, you could buy quicker – and Bentley isn’t bothered if you want to. This car isn’t quite in the Ferrari Speciale, Lambo Performante, Porsche Turbo or Aston Martin AMR league for outright, asphalt-warping thrust. But, as Bentley is at pains to point out, it’s all about quality over quantity. Not about how fast you go, but how you go fast, and how much fun you have in the process.
The car’s chassis mostly lives up to that billing, when it’s on song, as you’re about to read. But I think the V8, for all its rortier audible character, struggles to – if only a little bit.
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