It’s interesting how little jostling you feel like accepting in a car as luxurious as this, though. That’s why most testers sought out Bentley’s ‘Custom’ drive mode, through which you can combine maximum extravagance from the exhaust, and the weightiest steering, with a mid-level suspension calibration.
This GTC does handle like a driver’s car, with enough handling poise and fluency to savour, and it appeals that little bit more readily and vividly than a Bentley Contintal GTC W12 might. It still always feels its size and weight, and never shakes off its luxury brief, but in the latter respect, quite tellingly, nor would you want it to.
Comfort and isolation
Bentley’s excellent sports seats are the foundation of everything the GTC does here to make it a car you could happily spend days touring in. A couple of our testers would have appreciated the option to adjust the seat cushion an inch or so lower, to benefit from marginally better wind protection with the roof down.
Even for taller drivers, though, there is only really enough wind to rustle your hair at motorway speeds. With the GTC’s side windows up and its wind deflector in place especially (it’s an easy two-minute fix and stows neatly in a bag in the boot), the cabin is well sheltered, even at around 70mph.
And with the roof up, while you can certainly hear more of the outside world than you would through aluminium and glass, noise levels remain commendably low. Our meter recorded just 66dBA of cabin noise at 70mph in the GTC V8 S. That’s a little more than from the Rolls-Royce Dawn we tested in 2016 but only 1dBA more than in the Continental GT Speed coupé we tested in 2022.
The GTC’s chassis’ sheer weight gives it apparent integrity and, while you can find rougher surfaces that elicit the faintest shimmy from the steering column, almost no scuttle shake or chassis flex is evident. The car’s secondary ride is generally quiet and supple, although the 22in wheels of our test car did occasionally clunk a little over broken asphalt.
Track notes
Our test car’s fitment of Pirelli All-Season tyres made itself plain in the limit handling, but not in any regrettable way. Such a heavy and powerful car could, you might assume, quickly overheat and overwhelm such rubber in the dry.
But in the event, it didn’t. The GTC V8 S’s slightly reduced grip level proved a positive influence, giving the chassis a little more latitude to express itself around the tighter bends, and teasing quite a playful steady-state cornering balance out.
Using Sport mode and dialling down the stability controls turns the active anti-roll bars to their most aggressive, and they, in turn, manipulate the cornering balance effectively, shifting lateral stiffness from front to rear as the car corners, and letting the chassis rotate keenly.
Bigger angles of power oversteer still aren’t the car’s speciality but it’s easy to get it pointing through a bend, and to keep it tight to a line.
