Bentley Continental GT V8 S Coupé

Sedate, quiet, luxuriously furnished with expensive trimmings... the two have more than a little in common.

But Bentley has always prided itself on the slightly naughty streak that it mixes with the luxury and obsessive attention to detail that only the world’s true elite car brands can boast.

It also caters for a growing number of younger buyers who are more likely to step out of a football club training ground than a Mayfair establishment and are looking for that extra bit of ooph from their beautiful carriage.

And now there’s a new Bentley, built for people who want to take that attitude to a new level.

It’s based on the more agile and aggressive of the two Continental GT models; the V8. With 4.0 litres of engine capacity the standard car is hardly a slouch, but its 500bhp has been tweaked up to 521bhp for the new GT V8 S.

Okay, so an extra 21bhp when you already have 500 under the bonnet isn’t that significant an increase. In truth, both cars offer superb performance and you would have to be a Bentley anorak to notice any difference between the two.

The big difference comes in the shape of suspension upgrades that aim to keep the weighty car under tighter control through the twists and turns of a B-road.

Stiffer suspension by 45 per cent at the front and 33 per cent at the back, along with a ride height reduced by 10mm and stiffer bushes by up to 70 per cent, allow for less pitch, roll and general slack in the handling. The GT V8 is already a great car to drive, but as the pace rises it’s not too hard to reach the limits of its composure. The S model aims to give keen Bentley drivers more of what they want when the need for speed strikes.

Bentley offers both hard-top and convertible versions of the car, with the latter a couple of hundred kilos heavier but with the benefit of rather a lot more headroom. A wind deflector is available for the soft-top car to minimise intrusive buffeting. A Bentley driver wishes to arrive unruffled by the journey.

One of the most popular options on the S is likely to be the Sports Exhaust, which in combination with faster and more aggressive accelerator responses in the eight-speed automatic gearbox’s Sport mode, creates a wonderfully thunderous soundtrack.

Simply put your foot down and soak up the gloriously rich cacophony. Do so on a twisty, undulating road and the other thing you’ll notice is the effect of that suspension tuning. Right up to the limits of grip the GT V8 S is surprisingly composed, with less noticeable weight transfer through the sort of S-bends that can trouble the standard V8.

Of course, luxury is paramount for Bentley and it doesn’t suffer in the slightest for the S model’s increased sporting focus. The materials are supremely tactile, the leathers are customisable to taste and the woods and/or metals are of the very highest order. There’s an inescapable sense of weightiness and of substantial build that you only really get in British ultra-high-end luxury cars.

The GT V8 S is, despite a bar set pretty high, an absolute delight to drive. It’s still no flyweight B-road missile but it’s remarkably well balanced, and a day behind the wheel leaves its capability in no doubt whatsoever. The Sports Exhaust is pretty much essential to the character of the car, and, put politely, the current Bentley crop this one is the one that makes the most entertaining fist of a brisk drive.

This is Bentley at its brilliant best.

At a glance

Bentley Continental GT V8 S Coupé
Price: from £139,000
Engine: 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 petrol producing 521bhp and 502lb.ft.
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic gearbox driving all four wheels.
Performance: Top speed 192mph, 0-62mph in 4.3 seconds.
Fuel economy: 26.8mpg.
CO2 emissions: 246g/km