Bentley, Ettore Bugatti reportedly once sneered, built the fastest trucks in Europe. Okay, Mr. Bugatti was probably a mite peeved his delicate little sports cars were routinely trounced by W.O. Bentley's thundering green giants at Le Mans during the late 1920s, but he had a point. Bentleys were big, and they were heavy. And they certainly were fast.
Fast forward 80 years, and little has changed. The 621-horsepower Bentley Continental Supersports is fast. In fact, it's the fastest Bentley in history. Engineering boss Ulrich Eichhorn claims the Supersports will sprint from 0-to-60 mph in 3.7 seconds, nail 100 mph in 8.9 seconds, and hit 204 mph. Eichhorn also says it is -- shock! -- a lightweight Bentley. Then he pauses and, with a twinkle in his eye, adds, "but it still weighs 4800 pounds" Ettore's still sneering.
Fast forward 80 years, and little has changed. The 621-horsepower Bentley Continental Supersports is fast. In fact, it's the fastest Bentley in history. Engineering boss Ulrich Eichhorn claims the Supersports will sprint from 0-to-60 mph in 3.7 seconds, nail 100 mph in 8.9 seconds, and hit 204 mph. Eichhorn also says it is -- shock! -- a lightweight Bentley. Then he pauses and, with a twinkle in his eye, adds, "but it still weighs 4800 pounds" Ettore's still sneering.
Then there's this: The Continental Supersports will deliver that staggering performance running on the same E85 ethanol/gasoline mix you pump into a flex-fuel Chevy SUV. That's right, the fastest Bentley ever is also the first bio-fuel Bentley. So it's a tree-hugger's supercar? Well, that depends on how you track the carbon-dioxide molecules (see sidebar), although Eichhorn points out the Supersports is also 95 percent recyclable. "Not that this happens with a Bentley," he grins. "Most of our cars typically end up in museums, not landfills."
The Supersports is a car that coalesced into being. Bentley vehicle validation manager Paul Edwards had figured out how to trim over 300 pounds from the Continental coupe during the development of the GT Speed versions. At the same time, engineers working for chassis and powertrain director Brian Gush had discovered that a mild increase in turbo boost coupled with improved intercooling delivered an additional horsepower bump beyond the 48 horses achieved with the Speed program. Gush's team was also looking at tweaks to the driveline that included faster shift times for the ZF 6HP26 six-speed automatic transmission and a 40/60 front/rear torque split to balance the Conti GT's nose-heavy weight bias. For more details click here.
