BloggerMag V2

I’ve taken delivery of the 2012 Bentley Continental GT down the block from Manhattan’s famous Hogs ‘n’ Heifers saloon, where hundreds of bras dangle behind the bar and a guy built like an upright piano warns me, after my pals and I take turns at the loo, that he’ll bend us into pretzels if we snap any pics inside the bar.

“No worries, brother,” I say, but nothing assuages him until Kristy’s Nikon is in its case instead of hanging around her neck.

It’s an ironic slice of life – my $189,000 test car, parked less than 20 feet from me in this once-skeevy-but-now-tony section of town, is a source of constant attention, photo-snapping and red carpet treatment from delivery people, beat cops, fashionistas and swells—and its occupants are growled at like bums.

Location is everything, though, and climbing behind the wheel of the plush, magnificent, hand-built new GT after leaving the bar means my location is Here, wherever I go. My week’s test is right up there with the touch of a lover, the first taste of a chocolate cake at a fine restaurant, or leaving the house without a coat for the first time in months as spring arrives. Granted, those things don’t cost as much as a brand new house in some parts of the country, but you get the idea.

The 2012 GT has lost 165 pounds and features a tweaked front and rear lighting design. New slim-line “cobra” front seats coddle riders while bathing their noses in olfactory goodness. Rear passengers get more leg room, although a 6-foot friend had to be practically tamped in like a cannon ball back there. The cabin’s trimmed with soft-touch leathers, a full range of wood veneers, cool-touch metals and deep-pile carpets – all hand-crafted. Everywhere you look, listen, feel and smell uplifts you from the mundane and into the sublime.

The GT’s V-12, twin-turbocharged all-wheel-drive engine is explosive, with 567 snorting, galloping horses under its hood, and “Quick Shift technology” cuts shift time by 50%. The process is so seamlessly quiet that it’s as though the car has just one speed; “stop” and “WOAH.”

While you won’t mistake the GT for an R-8 or similar, velocity and stability are there when you need them and the car also works as an all-around vehicle, suitable for grocery runs or spirited back-road touring. Shift paddles allow you to grab more power as necessary. Four camshafts and 48 valves allow the engine to breathe effortlessly and help generate torque, and the car’s capable of running on gasoline, the controversial E85 bioethanol, or any mix of the two – all from a single tank.

An all-new, high-output 8-cylinder engine will be available to order later this year, Bentley honchos say.

10 years ago, my first test Bentley Arnage T came with a sound system, if you could call it that, seemingly from the Swing era. Bentley has, happily, massively upped their game since then. An 8-inch screen displays the GT’s audio system, telephone, ride and comfort settings. The nav system, which uses both an in-car hard-disc drive and a DVD player to access route data, employs “dynamic” navigation to guide you around areas of heavy traffic, and finds destinations using geo-tagged photos from an SD memory card.

Your infotainment system offers a combination of touchscreen controls and classic knurled rotary switches. An eight-speaker sound system is offered as standard, employing the latest “Balanced Mode Radiator” technology, and tunes can be be played and controlled from your iPod® as well as from a six-disc CD changer, SD card reader or directly from the car’s hard-disc drive, which can store up to 15GB of music.

The week’s test took me over hill, dale, streets and highways, under windex-blue skies and the black of night. This was not a long-distance drive, nor did I head for Limerock or Poconos Raceway as I’ve done with other Bentleys. It was a week of going where I needed to go over rough roads and smooth, and the car did what a luxury car is supposed to do. It pleased me, delighted me, relaxed me and reminded me, in this world of increasing plastic, chipboard and stuff that falls apart soon after purchase, that some things are still hand-built with the greatest of care and the finest of materials, and are worth pursuing.