continental

2014 Bentley Continental GT V8 S Convertible

Again, sorry for the lack of interesting writing, but I have been very busy with being a new dad and my career.
Most likely from here on out these posts will be photo heavy with less writing. But when I have notes I will be sure to include them!

Like a fullback in football, heavy, planted, but quick when it needs to be; beautiful looking; got more attention than Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet; suspension settings are like polar opposites, comfort is comfortable, but sloppy, sport is still comfortable but much more responsive to inputs and road feel and is preferable to me, in full comfort mode car felt big and boaty, but in full sport mode felt more tossable and smaller; can feel the heft of the car, especially in braking and hard cornering, still handled well in sport mode, but definitely suffers from the vehicle weight; wish brakes felt better, not as responsive as I would have liked; transmission in normal D is laggy, and needs a lot of pedal pressure to become responsive, found myself in situations where i needed to use acceleration and it was way too slow for the amount needed, but transmission in sport mode was wonderfully much more responsive, kept revs higher, downshifts were much quicker and responsive, overall sport mode was preferred, plus it let you hear the engine sounds much more; LOVE the sound of the V8, sounds great, deep sound and sounds bad ass at full open throttle, especially in tunnels; paddle shifter location was annoying for normal driving, kept trying to hit those when trying to use the turn signals; seats comfortable, loved the massaging feature and the two tone interior; everything was nice to the touch, metal features, beautifully stitched leather; not a fan of the dials and knobs, felt nice to the touch, but they were tiny and required a lot of manipulating to change things for some, steering wheel dial was a little laggy when trying to change settings

Bentley Continental GT V8

It’s not everyday you get to drive around in a Bentley. Lucky for me, I had the pleasure of taking one out for a night while in Los Angeles covering the Auto Show.
When you think of a Bentley, you kind of think of the rich celebrity type person who wants a status car, you normally don’t think of a car that’s fun to drive. Well, having this car for a night gave me a ton of fun. Obviously, everything about this car was magnificently luxurious, so I don’t feel that I have to go into too much detail about how nice it is. Instead, I’m going to strictly talk about how much fun it was to drive.
First off, I’ve driven the W12 version of this car previously, and wasn’t too impressed with the engine note. Yeah, it’t got a 12-cylinder engine, which leads you to think, “Don’t some Lamborghinis have 12 cylinders? This thing should sound awesome since it also has 12 cylinders.” To this, I have to say, the sound of the GT V8 sounded much, much better than the W12 version. It had a nice deep, throaty growl that reminded me of a more sophisticated American v8. Cruising along trying to see if anyone notices a Bentley driving around downtown L.A., and its nice and quiet, but punch that throttle and you open up a can of sweet music.
The GT V8 doesn’t feel aggressively fast, but I can assure you that this thing can, and will push you into your seat, and if you have some passengers in the car, they’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quick and luxurious this car is. I mean, for a car that starts around $175,000, you wouldn’t expect anything less.
So in conclusion of my night out with the Bentley Continental GT V8, I’d have to say I was going into it not really expecting anything. I’m not the type of guy that revels in the mass luxury of these type of vehicles. However, I was thoroughly impressed with the amount of fun I had driving this car around L.A. Merging into traffic, tackling off-ramps, driving around a covered garage listening to the burble of the V8, all this attributed to a very fun night.