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2019 Bentley Continental GT First Drive Review | A grand tourer learns to dance

The Austrian Alps are a curious venue to show off that great hunter of the highways, the Bentley Continental GT. With deep green forests and soaring thrusts of exposed rock, the Alps are one of those few places where the natural world still reigns supreme. Humanity isn't going to change this place much. You can forget about six-lane freeways blasted through rock — the only way to get around is on narrow, twin lanes. True to its name, the coupe is perhaps the truest grand touring car on the market — comfort happily married to speed. I once logged a personal best time between New York City and Boston in a base GT, despite a pounding nighttime rain. Even that miserable East Coast route felt easy in the GT, which eats through highway miles in a peculiarly relentless fashion. It was born for distance. This is our first drive of the new, third-generation car, which won't be sold in North America for another year, at a starting price of $214,600. We've been told it is a changed machine — a GT still, but with more nimbleness. And now we're about to find out, having left behind quaint Austrian villages for a steep mountain road that switchbacks up toward the clouds. It's everything you hope and dream when you fantasize about the Alps. Before me is a straightaway interrupted by a quick left-right bend and an uphill switchback. A small twist of hands on the nicely weighted steering wheel and the Bentley jukes through the left-right fluidly; no need to brush the brakes until we're right up to the hairpin. Then a firm push on the stoppers and a full lock of the steering wheel and — listen to that! — tire noise from the 21-inch Pirellis as we get back on the gas early. The car stays remarkably flat despite the camber of the turn. I snap open my hands and flat-foot the accelerator. Another hairpin beckons just beyond. And so it goes, the Conti welcoming a full-throated uphill attack. We get to the top and begin the fall back down the mountain, which is even more illuminating. This is the model with the W12 — the only one available at launch, notorious for carrying too much weight in its nose. Take a previous generation on a tight downhill route and you wrestle the grille through the turns, giving up entry speed to mitigate inevitable front-end push. It was a point-and-shoot car, relying on good brakes and ample power to make up lost time through the turns. This new generation is a momentum machine. There is a newfound rhythm and flow. It is deft and it is nimble.

Bentley shifting W12 engine production to UK

Who would you think would be the largest producer of 12-cylinder engines in the world? Mercedes? BMW? Ferrari? Think again: as you might have guessed from the headline, it's Bentley. The thing is that, while all Bentley automobiles are manufactured in the UK, its engines aren't: while the 6.75-liter V8 in the Mulsanne is made at home, the innovative 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 engine in Continental models so equipped (like the newer 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8) is shipped in from Germany. But that won't be the case any longer.
Bentley has just announced that production of the W12 engine is moving to its home base in Crewe by the end of this year. The shift in production (which follows the migration of the Flying Spur from Dresden to Crewe in 2007) will create 100 jobs in the UK - a country which employs some 142,000 workers in the automotive sector - and produce as many as 9,000 engines per year. That in and of itself would account for the vast majority of the 10,000-plus cars Bentley made last year, but will also make Bentley an exporter of engines for the first time in its history.
Right there at the factory, Bentley will fit the engines into twelve-cylinder versions of the Continental GT, GTC and Flying Spur, and send some back to Germany for use in the Audi A8. Applications within the Volkswagen brand itself like the Phaeton and Touareg no longer use the W12 engine, but could conceivably use it again in the future - they'll just have to bring them in from England is all.

Bentley Bentayga crossover prototype keeps on strippin'

The Geneva Motor Show is over, and the stunning EXP 10 Speed 6 concept has had its moment in the limelight. But now it's back down to business for Bentley. That means working on getting its new Bentayga crossover to market, and from these latest spy shots, it seems that's exactly what the British automaker is up to. Pictured here wearing less clothing than ever before, the Bentayga looks pretty darn near ready for its debut. The pre-production prototype even has its full leather seats in place, with plastic covers to protect them as the development drivers (like the one trying his darnedest to block the shots) do their thing. Of course there are still some parts hidden from view, with thin foil covering the headlights, taillamps and rear quarter windows. There's also something weird going on with those gills on the rear door. And the wheels are likely to be replaced as the rest of the trim is installed. But by and large, what you see here is what the production version is expected to look like, sans the polish. Related Video: