Bentley Continental Supersports - Deliveries start +video

Customer deliveries of the Bentley Continental Supersports start this month.

Customer deliveries of the Bentley Continental Supersports start this month, and we have video of Derek Bell talking and driving the Supersports at the Nurburgring.

The Bentley Continental Supersports is the fastest and most extreme of Bentleys. It started out as an in-house project to explore weight reduction and performance possibilities, but turned in to a plan for a production model once Bentley realised just what they could achieve. Bentley are now even considering a convertible Supersports.

And what they have achieved is quite remarkable. This behemoth from Bentley – already an extraordinary performer in standard Continental and Speed guises – now has performance that will alarm even true supercars. It can reach 60 mph in 3.7 seconds (which is up there with cars like the Ferrari 599 and Porsche GT2) and on to 204 mph. It has retuned steering and suspension, utilising lighter weight components, retuned dampers and anti-roll bars. It gets a 40:60 rear-biased torque split for the all-wheel drive system, carbon ceramic brakes, a wider track at the rear and a recalibrated ESP.

Bentley has reduced the weight in the Supersports by 240lbs over the GT Speed. You lose the back seats, which are replaced by a luggage deck with a carbon fibre retaining beam for the luggage, and the interior is trimmed in carbon fibre and Alcantara instead of wood and leather. But the raison d’etre of the Supersports is its E85 Biofuel capability.

Bentley has to play the ‘Eco’ game to satisfy regulations on average emissions. All their cars will offer a biofuel capability before too long which has the advantage of increasing power and reducing – quite dramatically – well-to-wheel CO2 emissions. Bentley claim the well-to-wheel emissions drop by 70% when the Supersports is running on E85.

And now the first Bentley Continental Supersports are about to escape in to the wild, with the first customer cars being delivered to their lucky owners this month. Those in the US will have to make do with petrol only versions until the middle of 2010 as the US hasn’t finished homologating the Supersports. But most everyone else will get the full-fat biofuel version.

To celebrate the first deliveries Bentley has sent us a video of the Supersports with Derek Bell talking and driving the Supersports at the Nurburgring. The big Bentley makes a pretty good fist of the Nordschleife. But then we knew it would after we watched Derek Bell on the Goodwood Hill Climb in the Supersports in July.

Now all the new owners have to do is find an E85 pump at their local petrol station.