First Drive: The Bentley Continental Supersports Has Hit the Gym

Enthusiasts spend a lot of time lamenting car bloat, the general trend for cars to get bigger, heavier, and more high-tech, then becoming more powerful to deal with that heft, then requiring even more heft to deliver and control the increased power. Curb weights go up, engagement levels go down. We complain about it almost across the board, from Corvettes to Super Duty pickup trucks.

I complain about it more than most. But not across the board. Because one brand consistently gets a pass: Bentley. As far as I’m concerned, for the Continental GT and its siblings, mass is a feature, not a bug. Everything on these cars is thicker, denser, more reinforced, and more layered in order to better isolate the people on the inside from the real world outside.

See More Photos Bentley

Yes, despite this, I have also driven Bentleys on racetracks. You do sometimes see them there even if I’m not in the vicinity, although generally parked in the paddock rather than muscling their way around the circuit itself. But you would likely be shocked at how well a GT Speed does a fourth-gear slide, or how nicely the Continental V8 S with optional carbon-ceramic brakes held up to a 30-minute track session at the demanding Sonoma Raceway.

But although a Continental GT, a GT S, or a GT Speed will hold up well to track work, they have not been optimized for the task. So what about a Bentley that has been? Could it be turned into a real, connected driver’s car of the sort you really would take to a track day or buy as a weekend canyon car? Could it be stripped down and pared back and made, well, almost lightweight?

See More Photos Bentley

My first chance to drive the new Continental Supersports came on track at Laguna Seca. This wasn’t a comprehensive test; I was limited to six laps on track with the active safety systems all fully enabled and with a chaperone in the passenger seat. There would be no road driving. It was a short go, but a promising one.

The Supersports isn’t just the lightest Continental GT ever, it is the lightest Bentley road car in 85 years. It really has been nearly a century since a Bentley had a curb weight beginning with a three. Although not yet officially certified, the company says the Supersports is on track to come in at 1995 kilograms, or 4398 pounds, just under two metric tons. Did you just chuckle a bit because nearly 4400 pounds is objectively not light? Fair enough, but consider that the current Continental GT Speed is over a thousand pounds heavier than the Supersports. That is an impressive commitment to shedding mass, with the biggest reductions coming through a switch to rear-wheel drive and losing the regular Conti’s plug-in hybrid system.

See More Photos Bentley

The Supersports looks different, with the deep chin splitter, wing, and rocker panels giving off Mustang Dark Horse vibes. That’s not a bad thing, and the carbon body panels and aero components don’t just reduce weight, they also help to rebalance the aerodynamics that have changed as the center of mass has been altered by the loss of the driven front axle, high-voltage battery pack, and rear seats. Bentley claims an increase in downforce by up to 660 pounds over the GT Speed. The 22-inch forged alloy wheels also reduce unsprung weight and bring in an unlikely Porsche crossover—they are made by Manthey, which has engineered them for both lightness and strength.

The front seats are lower than those of other Contis, and they have been stripped of massage functions but have grown deeper side bolsters and shoulder support. The rest of the interior, insanely two-tone in the car I drove, is familiar from the other members of the Continental GT clan, with carbon-fiber-weave dash inserts. Round metal air vents with fantastically fluid-feeling plungers have survived, but the James Bond–esque rotating center display screen has been sacrificed as part of the weight-saving strategy.

Working without a plug-in hybrid system, the Supersports is also the least powerful current-generation Continental, despite its 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 making 657 hp and 590 lb-ft in its own right—with all that power going to the rear wheels only. Zero to 60 is . . . not the point. But it’s also somewhere under four seconds, depending on traction. Which, on track, is enhanced with the Pirelli P Zero Trofeo RS tires I experienced the car on.

See More Photos Matt Farah

It also stops. With 17.3-inch diameter carbon-ceramic discs up front, the largest fitted to any road car, with 10-piston calipers the Supersports has huge braking power. The 16.1-inch rear discs with four-pot calipers are only slightly less wild. Air suspension is still present, with twin-valve dampers for Tour and Sport drive modes. Like the regular Conti GT, a 48-volt active anti-roll system keeps the body in check, and rear-steering and an electronically controlled rear differential round out the big-ticket handling items.

With so little time in the driver’s seat, I got to harvesting impressions as soon as I hit the track. Right away, the Supersports’ body felt strapped down tighter to its wheel hubs. The ripples of Laguna’s curbs came through in the wheel, not violently, but enough to properly transmit the texture of the surface. The brakes, too, impressed, at least over what was a short stint. Hard, repeated stops on track didn’t illicit much sense of fade.

See More Photos Matt Farah

Boy, did it want to slide. Just over 650 horses is a lot to send to the rear wheels of a front-engined car, and even with the traction control engaged the Supersports would step its back end out when braking into a corner. This was good, and I soon learned that it was consistent with its level of oversteer and that getting sideways on entry is the proper way to get the car turned. I just had to modulate the throttle and keep the angle held for the remainder of the corner.

But, sadly, the traction control was a real buzzkill, denying me the chance to further influence the Supersports’ line with more power. Unlike Aston Martin, Ferrari, or McLaren’s more adept traction management systems, Bentley’s cut the throttle entirely, snapping mild oversteer back into place well before anything more exciting could develop. I know that the modern all-wheel-drive Bentleys are much more fun with the systems fully de-energized; I imagine it will be the same with the Supersports.

See More Photos Bentley

But let’s talk about the way the new car handled Laguna Seca’s corners six through 10, where you definitely want poise over sideways thrills: a fast, high-g kink, the Corkscrew, and one of the scariest downhill off-camber corners in motorsports. Here the Supersports got big points, loading up the front right tire beautifully with just a smidge of push across six, brutish enough to take the “Zanardi line” through the Corkscrew. And while I had to stab the brakes before turning into Turn 9, the back end didn’t step out—that behavior is reserved for the slower, tighter turns you want it for.

The one real weak point to driving any modern Continental on track is when manually shifting. The software controlling the dual-clutch gearbox insists on far more margin than is strictly necessary to give a downshift; it won’t allow one that will put the engine toward the top of its rev range, even if that would be well short of the limiter. I was hoping the Supersports would get a unique shift program to change this, but sadly no. So my one real dynamic complaint remains: Don’t tug the down paddle until the revs fall to 3500 rpm or so. In the car, or standing trackside, the Supersports’ V-8 sounds tremendous, with a guttural, baritone sound. But the noise doesn’t carry very far—stand a hundred yards farther away and you barely hear a thing.

See More Photos Bentley

The Supersports is a limited edition sitting at the top of the Continental GT range, and it is priced accordingly. The base is $486,000, plus destination, delivery, and taxes. The wild, Ombre paint; the split-color cockpit; and plenty of smaller enhancements all cost extra, a lot more through Bentley’s Mulliner customization department. Expect the final number for a car specified like this one to start with a five, maybe even a six. That’s a big enough number that buyers will be cross-shopping exotic material, maybe even investment-grade cars. The Supersports is not a rational purchase, but Bentley says the entire run of 500 is already accounted for.

Which is further proof of the strange way the most luxurious end of the luxury market operates. It costs a ton of money to put all the performance, features, and tech into a Bentley Continental GT. And it costs even more to take them back out.