It’s far easier to describe what the GT Speed has gained in this department when you drive it on a track rather than on the road.
Find a wide circuit with plenty of room to run in to, dial up the drive modes and dial back the electronic stability control and you’ll unearth a car here that can indeed pivot and rotate underneath you like no Bentley road car has before it. It will powerslide a little, too, if you’re bold enough and use plenty of initial positive steering angle, although its limit handling does feel somewhat contrived and micro-managed when you shake it loose. This feels very much like a 2.3-tonne car with a lot of inertia to manage, however well it might succeed at achieving that at times, rather than a naturally agile, balanced and adjustable sports car.
On the road, it’s debatable whether the GT Speed does quite enough in simpler ways to deliver a really sporting driving experience, or at least one that is significantly more enticing and involving than that of any other GT. There is a shade more weight and connected feel about the steering, but what you don’t feel through your fingertips is the extra bite that the four-wheel steering undoubtedly generates on turn-in. Instead, it is produced almost as if by magic. It allows the car to take a keener line and a more playful attitude through a tight corner than you expect of something so heavy, althoughsomehownotinvitingyou to enjoy it quite as vividly as you otherwise might.
Drive with a bit of enthusiasm and you’ll feel the steering system, differential and anti-roll bars pitching the car into each apex and wheeling its mass around, only for them then to team up with the ESC a split-second later to manage the rotational momentum back out again – and all without you needing so much as a steering correction. Objectively, at least, it all works rather well, but that doesn’t make it engaging or involving.
