It might be a supercar, but PADDY COMYNfinds it hard to love Bentley's latest, even on a power-charged trip to Dubai
DENIAL. Sigmund Freud described it as a primitive defence mechanism used to resolve emotional conflict. It allays anxiety by refusing to perceive the more unpleasant aspects of external reality. You might have seen a few bankers and politicians using it of late. We have been using it too though.
December 2010 will go down in the history books for lots of reasons in Ireland and the weather is just one of those. We all, in some cases literally, got a crash course in tyres, winter driving skills and the difference between front, rear and four-wheel drive.
In the meantime, the IMF had come in to Ireland and turned the country into one big “naughty step” where we would all have to stay for the next decade or so. Having experienced minus 12 degrees on Christmas night and the financial collapse of Ireland a few weeks earlier, we decided to drop the remains of the turkey in the bin and head to the Middle East.
You see, there are few better ways to feel good about your cold, collapsing country, than to go to a warm, collapsing country. Dubai isn’t entirely broke yet, but if it weren’t for their good pals Abu Dhabi, they would be well and truly in the soup. While we have ghost estates in Ireland, they have ghost skyscrapers.
We’ve been to Dubai before – once for the launch of the not-so-exciting Volvo C70 where the route consisted in part of driving 100km in a straight line. It is a country that seems to have been built as a theme park for rich people, by rich people. It is the favoured holiday destination of Wayne Rooney for heaven’s sake.
It does have its benefits. It is 25 degrees in December for a start. You can go shopping until midnight and shopping centres are the size of Offaly. Plus, here, the supercar still lives.
And it isn’t hard to see why. Most of the world’s oil comes from here, so it costs 33 cent per litre for petrol. You don’t just see the odd supercar here. You see all of them. Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini and even Bugatti would probably shut up shop if Dubai and Abu Dhabi disappeared.
Being in Dubai, I couldn’t really drive a Fiat 500, even though they have started selling them there. So we decided on something with about 550bhp more – the Bentley Continental Supersports. It is the fastest and most powerful Bentley ever. But this was always going to present a bit of a problem.
I never really warmed to the Bentley Continental in the first place. It sold in reasonable numbers in Ireland, at a massive price to people who didn’t care how much it cost. It was undoubtedly nicely put together, but so expensive in comparison to everything else and not much better than say, a Mercedes CL, that it baffled me a little why they were so coveted by the rich and newly rich.
But slate well and truly clean, this version of the Continental looked a little more at home in a country where the people could genuinely afford it. This car started off life as an “under the radar” project exploring the possibilities of weight reduction and increased power and torque on the Continental GT. This turned into a two-year project that eventually turned into an official new car programme, which resulted in this 621bhp car with a wide range of modifications. There are chassis enhancements including retuned steering and suspension, using lighter weight components, retuned dampers, and anti-roll bars. Torque slip is 40:60 rear biased and there is a wider track, 20-inch alloy wheels and a special ESP. There are carbon ceramic brakes as standard and 110kg has been cut compared to the Continental GT Speed. That is like removing one very big ‘fat cat’ from the passenger seat.
It certainly looks the part, blending right in with the Dubai scenery of wealth and opulence. It gains some reasonably respectable glances from the locals too. With a 6.0-litre W12 engine under the bonnet and twin-turbochargers, there is a ludicrous 800Nm of torque under my right foot and should I want to get to 160km/h in a hurry, it is only going to take me 8.9 seconds. The more traditional measure of 0-100km/h takes less than 4 seconds. Inside, the interior is red and leather-bound and the detailing is exquisite. More cows went to the sword here than for the local branch of McDonald’s.
So yes, I should feel happy then? Well no. This is Bentley’s fastest and most driver-focused car for a generation but there are a few problems. One is the fact that Dubai has more speed cameras than a Gatso factory and they are spaced out, it seems, every few metres, because apparently this is a very lucrative source of income for the local government. Each fine is around €200 and the locals who can afford it just pay their fines. The second problem is the lack of corners. We know that they do exist, but they are few and far between (when they are good, they are really good, such as the Jebel Hafeet mountain road) so that makes Dubai perhaps one of the most pointless places to own a supercar in the world. They are good for showing off, but not a lot else.
And despite the obvious improvements to this Bentley over the last one we drove, it is still a difficult car to love. Yes, it is fast. There is no doubt that the feat of getting such an enormous lump of car to accelerate this quickly is remarkable, but it just feels all wrong putting this much sporting intent into a car that is so massive. If you want to cross continents, which the Bentley Continental is so remarkable at doing, then leave it as a luxury car. But even the regular Continental had a ride quality which simply wasn’t good enough and by making it ultra-sporty you are removing some of its better traits completely. An Aston Martin DBS manages to do the job that this Bentley sets out to do so much better. I couldn’t engage with this car in any way. It was undoubtedly fast, yet never really felt like an agile sports car.
Sometimes, just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean that you should. And this Bentley is a case in point. Why take a comfortable, sumptuous cruiser and make it into a rip-roaring performance car? I’m not sure. It all feels a bit crude and artificial. A bit like Dubai really.
FACTFILE
Bentley Continental Supersports
Engine5,998cc W12 twin-turbo
Power621bhp at 6,000rpm, 800Nm at 6,000rpm
Max Speed328km/h
0-100km/h3.9 seconds
CO2 emissions388g/km
Motor TaxBand G
Annual Road Tax€2,100
PriceDo you really need to know? Okay then, €260,000