The GT3-R represents a big step away from the living room for Bentley. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
The GT3-R represents a big step away from the living room for Bentley.
The car lets non-professional drivers with fat wallets get in on Bentley's revived interest in racing. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
The car lets non-professional drivers with fat wallets get in on Bentley's revived interest in racing.
Air scoops on the car's bonnet help release air pressure and bring cool air into the engine. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Air scoops on the car's bonnet help release air pressure and bring cool air into the engine.
Bentley slapped on a carbon fiber front splitter and rear wing to improve airflow and generate more downforce, which helps keep the car on the ground. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Bentley slapped on a carbon fiber front splitter and rear wing to improve airflow and generate more downforce, which helps keep the car on the ground.
Bentley lowered the gear ratios to keep the car in each gear longer, improving acceleration. While the GT V8 runs from 0 to 60 mph in an impressive 4.6 seconds, the GT3-R does it in just 3.6. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Bentley lowered the gear ratios to keep the car in each gear longer, improving acceleration. While the GT V8 runs from 0 to 60 mph in an impressive 4.6 seconds, the GT3-R does it in just 3.6.
Unlike most Bentleys, this isn’t a car you can have customized however you want. Even the color (“glacier white” with lots of racing green accents) is predetermined. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Unlike most Bentleys, this isn’t a car you can have customized however you want. Even the color (“glacier white” with lots of racing green accents) is predetermined.
Even at 90 mph, the Bentley feels quiet and luxurious. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Even at 90 mph, the Bentley feels quiet and luxurious.
Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
The upgraded performance comes at the cost of fuel economy. The track-loving Bentley will go just 13 miles on a gallon of gas (premium, naturally) in the city, and 20 on the highway. Drive it like the rich hooligan the car’s designed for, and we bet those numbers will dip even lower. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
The upgraded performance comes at the cost of fuel economy. The track-loving Bentley will go just 13 miles on a gallon of gas (premium, naturally) in the city, and 20 on the highway. Drive it like the rich hooligan the car’s designed for, and we bet those numbers will dip even lower.
The GT3-R is very powerful. It’s very fast. It produces a lovely exhaust burble when you come off the throttle quickly. It corners surprisingly well for such a big, heavy car, thanks to torque vectoring that uses the rear brake to pull the front of the car in, minimizing oversteer. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
The GT3-R is very powerful. It’s very fast. It produces a lovely exhaust burble when you come off the throttle quickly. It corners surprisingly well for such a big, heavy car, thanks to torque vectoring that uses the rear brake to pull the front of the car in, minimizing oversteer.
Please be careful, the rep says as he hands over the keys: This is the only one we’ve got. A few minutes later I’m tearing through the backroads outside of Sonoma, California, delighting in the rumble of a twin turbocharged V8 tuned to propel the quickest car Bentley has ever made and one of the fastest I’ve ever driven. There are reminders all over the car—on the hood, rear, steering wheel, and all four wheels—that this is in fact a Bentley. But it doesn’t fully compute.
Yes, the British luxury brand has racing heritage, but it’s hardly Ferrari or McLaren. These days, it’s best known for making grand touring cars worth more than the average house. Yet my ride for the afternoon, the Continental GT3-R, is a two-seater that runs from 0 to 60 in under four seconds.
Over the past 15 years or so, Bentley has been working to rebuild its credibility as a racing company. That’s a reputation it fully deserved back in the day, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times between 1924 and 1930, and making cars so appreciated that they were the models of choice for James Bond in Ian Fleming’s novels. The company’s best known model was the “Blower Bentley,” nicknamed for the supercharger that amped up the power of its 4.4-liter engine. In 1931, after getting into financial trouble, the company was sold to Rolls-Royce, a change that did it no good. For the next five decades, the Bentley name was used mostly on rebadged Rolls-Royces, and the brand’s link with performance faded. Sales and quality suffered, especially when Rolls collapsed financially in 1971, forcing the British government to nationalize its jet engine business and sell off the motoring branch.
In the 1980, under new ownership (along with Rolls), things at Bentley started to get better with the introduction of the Mulsanne (a distinct model from the current Mulsanne), named for a stretch of the Le Mans racetrack. In 1998, Volkswagen bought Bentley, and the brand got back into racing at Le Mans in 2001, winning the race in 2003. That same year, Bentley introduced the Continental GT, at the time the world’s fastest four-seater. Since then, the brand’s lineup has diversified to include three models, each with a pile of variations.
Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
The Race-Inspired GT3-R
Now, Bentley wants to keep reminding its customers of its racing pedigree—both past and present— to improve its overall reputation and increase its appeal to young buyers coming into their trust funds. One way it’s doing it is with the Continental GT3-R. The $337,000, limited edition ride is a pseudo race car, plunked halfway between the Continental GT V8 grand tourer and the Continental GT3, the Bentley that competes in real races.
It’s a rejiggered version of the four-seat GT V8. Bentley kept that car’s 4.0-liter, twin turbocharged V8 engine, but retuned it for drivers with an irresponsible streak. The GT3-R produces 572 brake horsepower, a 17 percent bump over the GT V8’s 500, all of it going to the rear wheels. It delivers 518 pound-feet of torque, compared to 487 in the GT V8. Bentley changed up the gear ratios to keep the car in each gear longer, improving acceleration.
While the GT V8 runs from 0 to 60 mph in an impressive 4.6 seconds, the 2.4-ton GT3-R does it in just 3.6. That’s faster than the new Corvette. Yet as I discovered on the wonderfully empty Sonoma roads that divide one vineyard from the next, even at 90 mph (an electronic limit Bentley wisely put on its only test car), the car feels solid, in control, and yes, comfortable. It was the blur of grapes in my peripheral vision and the roar of the engine that reminded me what was actually happening. Come off the throttle quickly and the reward is an exhaust burble (that’s unburnt fuel moving through the titanium exhaust, but it sounds great).
Josh Valcarcel/WIRED
Bentleys are all about indulgence, whether it’s the champagne bucket and massage seats in the Mulsanne or the neck warmers and 600 horsepower in the Continental GT Speed convertible. The GT3-R offers a “Sport” mode that won’t upshift until the engine hits 6,300 RPM. Since the V8 delivers peak horsepower at 6,000 RPM, you get to feel its full wrath each time your wingtip (made, of course, from the skin of a famous crocodile) hits the accelerator. If you elect to use the wheel-mounted shifter paddles instead of automatic mode, the car won’t play nanny and override your decision to redline the engine. Dialed back into Drive mode, the GT3-R is positively civilized.
It’s surprisingly nimble, too. On corners, the torque vectoring system—a first for Bentley—uses the rear brake to pull in the front of the car, minimizing understeer. The bushings are made with more metal and less rubber to make them firmer. The 16.5-inch carbon ceramic brakes on the front wheels are the biggest on any production car on the planet and in one stop can absorb 10 megajoules of energy (enough to power a house for hours).
To boost performance and give the look of a racing car, Bentley slapped on a carbon fiber front splitter and rear wing to improve airflow and generate more downforce, which helps keep the car on the ground. The body, like that of the GT V8, is made of steel and aluminum. Scoops in the hood help release air pressure and bring cool air into the engine.
The performance numbers are bolstered by changes the 221-pound drop in weight from the GT V8 to the GT3-R. The interior is spartan compared to what you find in other Bentleys. Wood accents, gone. Backseat, gone. Too heavy. The front seats are thinner than usual. It doesn’t matter, because 1) you still get high-grade, diamond-quilted alcantara faux leather and a suede-wrapped steering wheel; and 2) any luxury that would diminish the caviar-spitting thrill that comes with the car is not a luxury I want.
Even with the weight loss, the extra power means GT3-R owners will be spending a lot more time at the gas station, or sending their servants to take care of it. The Bentley will go just 13 miles on a gallon of gas (premium, preferably containing gold flakes) in the city, and 20 on the highway. Drive it like the ascot-wearing hooligan the car’s designed for, and it’s a safe bet the mpg numbers will dip even lower. Those hooligans won’t care. And they likely won’t care that they can’t customize it however they want, or even change the color. Bentley is making just 300 units of the car, which it sees more as a collector’s item than a personal vehicle that reflects the individual customer. It’s good as is, and anyone who doesn’t like British racing green shouldn’t have it anyway.
The GT3-R is not a practical vehicle. Its poster won’t adorn the bedroom walls of the nation’s 12-year-olds. It’s damn impressive anyway and I’m glad it exists. Bentley would never say so, but it’s kind of a muscle car—one that can actually handle turning. It’s nimble, fast, and loud, but can offer a smooth ride and just enough luxury for when you feel like being coddled.
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