Crewe's missile: Bentley's bullet

It grew out of the Continental GT Speed and the inevitable, tantalising question, "what if?". It seems that some Bentley aficionados regarded the GT Speed as a bit of a missed opportunity, a big improvement on the original that still didn't go far enough.

"What if?" indeed. What if they could save a chunk more weight? What if they could find an extra dollop of power? What if they could retune the steering response, change the torque split, sharpen the gearshift, tweak the engine mapping, widen the track, stiffen the suspension, and make the whole lot run on biofuel?

That last "what if?" may be rather incongruous in light of all that went before, but in fact it led to some of the most intensive and interesting re-engineering throughout the whole project, and the resulting improvements will find their way into the rest of the Bentley range sooner rather than later.

And all the other "what ifs?" add up to a car of quite extraordinary presence, even menace. The new colours, subtly flared arches and black wheels are at odds with the traditional Bentley image, but bring it a sense of real purpose. Black ‘brightwork', grille inserts and large new cooling intakes add power to the front face, and functional new bonnet vents hint at the forces created beneath. Massive carbon-ceramic brakes are clearly visible behind new 20in wheels, necessitated by the size of the discs they contain. At the rear, a reworking of the lower bumper and new, more vocal exhausts are probably all that most people will ever manage to see as the Supersports vanishes over the horizon.

The numbers are telling. A whopping 621bhp from the twin-turbo W12 engine is backed up by an even more gargantuan 800Nm of torque. Torque means acceleration, and the Supersports will charge from 80 to 120kph in a breathtaking 2.6 seconds. And consider the sprint to 100kph, dispatched in only 3.9 seconds. What car could match that?

Actually, surprisingly few. No Porsche, short of the new 911 Turbo (3.4sec) or a Carrera GT (3.9sec), that's for sure. Not a Ferrari until you get to the Scuderia (3.6sec), 16M (3.7sec) or 599GTB (3.6sec). The big Mercs? None of them until you involve McLaren (SLR 722, in 3.8sec) or AMG (new SLS, in 3.8sec). Not a Maserati shy of an MC12 (3.6sec), not an Audi with less than 10 cylinders, not even a Lamborghini until you get to the Gallardo LP 560-4 (3.6sec) or the Murci LP 670-4 (3.2sec). Think about it. This is a Bentley, a Grand Tourer in the traditional sense, behaving like one of the more exotic supercars. The clue is in the name — Bentley have quietly dropped the GT from this one, leaving it simply Supersports…

So, what's it like to drive? Bentley had chosen southern Spain as the location for its launch the area around Seville offering a tempting combination of open freeways, quiet B-roads and some challenging mountain terrain. There's also the very interesting Circuito Monteblanco, a dedicated test/race track facility about half an hour away. More of that tomorrow.

But for today, I have an appointment with the photographers. We've arranged to go and get some shots in the pristine Andalucian landscape, and they know just the road they want to use. This is my chance to drive the new Bentley on my own, unaccompanied by minders or other company. A chance I grab with both hands. First impressions: the Supersports sits slightly lower (about 12mm front, 14mm rear) than the GT Speed, and the standard 20in wheels are wrapped in bespoke Pirelli P Zero Rosso rubber bands. The styling blade that runs along the body from behind the front wheel is gloss black, not chrome, to match the headlight surrounds and other trim. This thing looks fast even standing still.

Swing the big door open and it's immediately obvious where Bentley saved most of the 110kg it took out of the car. Gone are the back seats, replaced by a carbon fibre ‘luggage restraint', apparently required by European legislation. Oh well, it'll keep your suitcase in place at deceleration rates of up to 20G. Gone too are the luxurious and deeply padded electric front seats, replaced with a pair of carbon fibre racing buckets, faced with ultra-grippy diamond-stitched Alcantara.

Those front seats alone accounted for 45kg of the weight saved, around 41 per cent of the total. Once you're in, they are very secure and supportive, and manually adjusted for fore and aft. I'd prefer it to be an inch or two higher, but that is a ‘seat out and use a different spacer' job to tailor the car perfectly to its owner. They may be firm, but they also prove to be very comfortable over a long afternoon's driving.

The rest of the cabin eschews the leather and wood of more sedate Bentleys in favour of satin-finish carbon fibre and soft-grip leather.

The wheel itself is very tactile, and backed by paddles for the new Quickshift control of the six-speed gearbox. This offers shift times 50 per cent faster than previous versions, and new software allows for double downshifts should you desire. The paddles themselves are column mounted, and though substantial, could be closer to the wheel.

Key in, pull both paddles back for neutral and thumb the starter button. After churning for a heartbeat longer than you expect, the 6.0-litre twin-turbo W12 bursts into life with a very satisfying whoomph. They meant it when they said the new exhausts were tuned for a greater aural experience — this is a car to drive through every village and tunnel with the windows down. Later we were trying to decide exactly what a W12 sounds like. Is it two V6s in close formation, or four straight threes, or one and a half V8s? Actually, the best answer is to imagine a Spitfire on full chat, passing overhead at 50 feet. It really is that good.

On the move and initial impressions are all surprisingly reassuring. Suspension (in the stiffer of two comfort modes) is firmish but compliant. The gearbox in full auto mode is so smooth you can't tell when it shifts. The brakes are strong but not as grabby as other carbon-ceramics.

The car is massive, but responds accurately and isn't intimidating to drive through small gaps. In short, it is disarmingly easy to drive. But you get a hint of the savagery to come if you prod the throttle a little harder. With a full 800Nm of torque available from 2,000rpm passing is astonishingly easy. So easy, in fact, you could forget that this is still a 2.2-tonne car and start driving it like a compact. Which I did.

We're up in the hills now, high above the southern plain, driving along a wonderfully twisty ribbon of well-maintained tarmac through the trees in search of a perfect bend. Once found, the rest of my afternoon consists of driving through this same bend in both directions, time and time again, whilst the ‘togs choose different cameras and lenses.

However, the repetition is instructive, as each pass allows me to fine-tune my line through the bend and try out the different suspension settings. The big car is easy to place, but not to reverse — rear visibility is not good. And it's only on the fifth pass that I spot the reversing camera display on the sat nav screen.

Game over, we head back to the hotel. Tomorrow will be a chance to explore much more of the performance envelope, both on an extended drive through the mountains, and later on the unrestricted expanse of the track. Can't wait!

The next day

Up bright and early, and the air is sharply cool. Should be a good day for the turbos.

Our route takes us west from Seville and up into the mountains behind. We have a stretch of motorway and here for the first time I notice a high-speed tremor from the front wheels — has somebody flat-spotted a tyre? We'll see. The road up to a coffee stop is similar to yesterday's, a combination of dual carriageway and two-lane blacktop. It's a chance to try the paddle-shift properly and it works very well, crisp upshifts thumping home with real authority and downshifts accompanied by a satisfying blip. I don't know if I can tell that they're 50 per cent faster, but in ‘sport' the auto box will hang on to a gear right until it runs into the rev limiter. Which is fun, but there is an override and you can't do daft things without the electronics taking over.

After two cups of full-fat, four star leaded super espresso coffee, we hit the second half of the mountain route. Hard. This was a lovely uphill three-lane road (normal uphill lane plus a crawler lane for trucks) that's carved around the contours of the landscape. Well-sighted and empty, it was glorious, because we could safely use more of the road, exploit the power and four-wheel drive a bit more fully.

Driven hard, the Supersports felt a little twitchy, pattering over imperfections and signalling that it was getting close to the edge of the envelope. Solution? Back the suspension off from Sport 1 to Comfort 2, and the car was transformed. Where before it would skitter out of a bend hunting for traction, now it dug in hard and hauled for the next apex like an express train. Just loosening the ride a little had allowed the suspension to accommodate imperfections rather than being upset by them, and the whole experience became much more sure-footed and involving. Truly a case of less is more.

But what goes up must come down, and the other side of the mountain was a chance to really test the brakes. Not that they showed any signs of fading, stopping smoothly and without complaint no matter what we asked of them. These carbon-ceramic disks are standard on the Supersports, and (combined with the lightweight wheels) contribute another 30kg to the weight saved. They're a Dh60,000 option on the GT Speed, fully half of the premium you'll pay for the full Supersports spec, and worth every dirham.

But the highlight of the day has to be the opportunity to unleash the Supersports on a track, and it's a revelation. Circuito Monteblanco is a purpose built test track that also hosts occasional Supermoto races and rounds of the Radical Cup. But it's mainly used by racing teams to do development testing and endurance trials. The outer circuit, which we're using, comprises a long, downhill start/finish straight which ends with a hairpin, a fast sweeping left into a chicane, then a wonderfully challenging right up to a blind summit, a sharp left and a long sweeping right where you can really play with the balance of the car.

In full attack mode and out onto the track. What's this thing actually going to do? Actually, the first thing you notice (again) is how good the brakes are — several of us found ourselves braking too early and having to regain speed before the main bends, such is the power of the stoppers. You could leave it improbably late and still scrub off enough speed even after the 100m board. Turn-in is sharp and cornering almost flat, the only clue to the enormous forces involved are the howls of distress from the tyres. Traction out of the corner is similarly impressive, all four wheels drifting slightly rather than either end getting out of shape. It just digs in and hauls with insane speed towards the next apex.

Fast changes of direction are less easy to achieve because of the mass involved. The chicane isn't just a flick left and flick right; you have to drive each half of it consciously. And therein lies the heart of this car. It's like comparing a long-keel racing yacht with a modern flying saucer.

The older boat will be much steadier through the water and carry more speed round a mark, but through a wider turn. A smaller, lighter car will turn in sharper and closer to the mark, but will have to regain more lost momentum. The Supersports prefers to ride the wave of torque provided by the engine rather than wringing out the last drop of power, and here the gearbox makes its opinion clear too, often changing up before you want it to. It is possible to drive the Supersports even harder, deliberately upsetting the balance to get it round a bend slightly faster, but that's not really what it's all about. The Supersports isn't a track car, but despite its size, you can still have enormous fun on the circuit.

And then back to the pits and time to think about what we've just done. The cars just sit there, unfazed, nothing smoking or burnt or locked into safety mode. Think about it — we've just spent a couple of hours hurling these things around a racetrack, and they might as well have just come back from Spinneys. Mind you, I wouldn't fancy the tyre bill — work one of these as hard as we did, and you too will need a full time Pirelli support truck and crew parked out the back.

The Bentley Supersports really does seem to defy the laws of physics, a conundrum, a contradiction in terms. It's clearly related to the Continental GT, but almost completely different in character. It's bigger than most saloons, but only has two seats. It weighs more than two tonnes, but drives like a car half the size. It is the fastest road car Bentley has built yet, but it is also the greenest.

Paul Jones, head of the entire Continental programme, and his team of engineering mavericks call this the ‘extreme' Bentley. I prefer the word ultimate.

Model Continental Supersports

Engine: 6.0-litre W12 Transmission Six-speed automatic

Max power: 621bhp @ 6,000rpm

Max torque: 800Nm @ 4,500rpm

Top speed: 329kph

0-100kph: 3.9sec

Price: Dh1million (approx)

UAE friendly

Plus: It's a Bentley, and it's fast

Minus: A bit twitchy at times