SHARP Drives: The Bentley Continental GTC Is a Desert Island Car

We get a lot of cars coming in and out of the SHARP garage every year. Many of them are good, some of them are great. But others, we flat-out just don’t want to give the keys back. The Bentley Continental GTC belongs to the latter group.

It’s not that Bentley’s big convertible excels in one particular area. For pure performance, you’d get a Ferrari Roma. For sheer beauty, you’d want an Aston Martin DB11. For daily usability, a Porsche 911 Turbo S cabriolet is probably the way to go. But the Bentley manages to blend those disparate, often competing attributes — performance, beauty and usability — into a single, sublime, car that simply does everything well.

The Continental cuts an easy silhouette around Palm Springs and the California desert. It’s a car for wafting and lazy Sunday afternoon lunches. The design is long and luxurious, yet understated too, not flashy. In a place like Toronto, or Montreal, or L.A., it wouldn’t attract undue attention.

Then, as we head up into the mountains, the GTC V8 transforms into a car that craves corners and specializes in bringing the horizon rushing towards you. The 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 flings this 2.3 tonne hunk of metal down the road with a shocking ease. (That’s what 569 lb-ft of torque will do for you.) There’s no need to fiddle with driving modes; you could throw the Bentley into one of its sportier settings, but the default “B” mode is perfectly judged for all occasions.

It’s so rare to encounter a two-door car that’s genuinely comfortable, even in traffic, on cracked and broken city roads where speeds rarely crest 20 km/h. There’s enough ground clearance that parking lot ramps don’t threaten to scrape the bumper; it’s a precious machine that drivers don’t need to be precious about.

Did we mention you can easily fit four adults into the Continental GTC? You can. And you can fit a baby seat in the back. (We tried.) Plus, the capacious trunk will hold all your gear for an extended road trip to the South of France, or a major grocery run.

Actually, we lied before — there is one specific area where the Bentley excels: the dashboard. The current-generation Continental launched a few years ago now, but it still has the best dash in the business. It’s one particular feature that puts it over the top: the US$6,490 Rotating Display. It’s a three-sided panel with a big touchscreen on one side, a trio of analog clocks on another, and a big slab of wood veneer on the third. At the push of a button, the driver can make the central screen disappear, replacing it by three old-school instruments: a compass, temperature gauge, and a stopwatch. They’re set into a wood panel that perfectly lines up with the rest of the dashboard. It may not sound like much, but it completely transforms the cabin. Without the blue glow of the central screen, the whole vibe of the cabin suddenly shifts. It feels more like a car and less like a computer terminal. The atmosphere becomes more relaxed, more opulent. We love it.

Our Continental GTC V8 test car was a U.S.-spec machine. After being loaded with options (including a $13,000 “Snow Quartz” pearlescent paint job, the $16,000 Mulliner Driving Specification, and a $6,900 Bang & Olufsen stereo) the total comes to US$330,305.

Here in Canada, the (relatively) modest GTC V8 starts at $313,700, while the full-fat GTC Mulliner W12 will set you back $455,100 — though it might be the last car you ever need. The Continental GT coupe range runs from $285,100 to just over $400,000. The model you select doesn’t matter as much as the colour, trim, and options you pick. The possibilities are almost infinite, so it all comes down to your personal taste.

If, by some improbable twist of fate, we found ourselves stuck on a desert island with great roads and only one car, we may well want it to be this one.

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