Bentley Continental GT: ‘A masterpiece to be approached with awe’

As Bentley celebrates its centenary, the new Continental GT shows that the great marque is showing no signs of its age or of slowing down

Bentley Continental GT
Price 159,000
0-62mph 3.7 seconds
Top speed 207mph
MPG 23.2
CO2 278g/km

It's a sharp spring day and we're inching through the traffic in one of the less spiritually uplifting towns of Kent's Medway. The car I'm driving is the pulchritudinous (thank you online thesaurus) Bentley Continental GT - known to all who reverentially whisper its name as the Conti. Its vast engine is chortling happily. It weighs more than 2 tonnes, yet it is so light on its feet that it can surge from 0-62mph in under 4 seconds, before topping out at a scarcely believable, and utterly pointless, 207mph. We slow at a junction and a shirtless man puts down his pint and walks purposefully into the middle of the road. He points at the Conti and fixes me with a menacing stare. "Oh no," mumbles my wife nervously, "what's he going to do?" There's a long pause. People stare. Then the man bellows as if all England will hear: "This. Is. A. Bloooooody. Car!" He grins wildly, gives me a big thumbs-up and waves us on our way" The Conti does this sort of thing to people - and I totally get how that guy feels.