2018 Bentley Continental GT & GTC SPIED on video
The next generation of the Bentley Continental GT and the convertible GTC are spied on video testing at the Nurburgring. Due to debut late 2017.
The Bentley Continental GT – and the soft-top Continental GTC – revolutionised Bentley’s sales long before the Bentayga SUV came along for chapter two of the re-imagining of Bentley by Volkswagen.
The original Continental GT was a victim of its own success, garnering a reputation as a heavy lump with a tendency to break expensively and beloved of footballers, none of which did its sales any harm, although it was a reputation it could have done without.
But the second generation – following the Porsche school of evolutionary car design – managed to quell the moans about the first generation, and in the process made the entry-level V8 GT the most appealing of the range. Which surely wasn’t Bentley’s intentions.
Now we’re less than a year away from take three for the Continental GT, and this time it’s going to have a lot going on under the skin borrowed from the new Porsche Panamera.
Based on the same MSB modular platform as the Panamera, the Conti seems to have grown a bit in this spy video, and it seems lower and wider too.
What is also evident – despite the plastic camouflage – is a clear influence from the Speed Six Concept, but with that car due to go in to production and slot in below the new, bigger, Continental GT, that’s no surprise.
Under the bonnet the beloved (by some) W12 will continue, as will the 4.0 litre V8, and it seems likely the new GT will also acquire a plug-in hybrid powertrain courtesy of Porsche.
The new Bentley Continental GT is expected to debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show next year and arrive with customers in early 2018. The GTC may not be revealed until 2018.
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