First Drive: 2014 Bentley Continental GT V8 S

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Bentley, First Drives, Luxury

Bentley still appeals to those with an appreciation for strong, Old World traditionalism. Cars wearing the storied Flying B have been discussed in wood-paneled drawing rooms by men wearing earthy tweeds and corduroy through clouds of fragrant cigar and pipe smoke, for decades. It is a company that has spent nearly 100 years building cost-no-object automobiles, for rich drivers who require a tremendous way to waft above the Sturm und Drang of mortal motoring.

The Bentley Continental GT, while unmistakably a party to that legacy of wooly privilege, has always seemed better suited to the nouveau riche than the landed gentry. The Mulsanne and the Continental Flying Spur still carry forward the brand’s heritage of unfathomably fast, gargantuan sedans, while the GT has been busy inveigling an entirely new class of buyer with its lottery-win good looks.

A microsecond version of that analysis was all I had time for as I careened around another heroic left-hand sweeper in this Ice (white) 2014 Bentley Continental GT V8 S. For a car with roots in rainy England and German-engineering genes, the V8 S felt remarkably at home while crushing the desert-strewn distance between San Diego and Palm Springs – almost the epicenter of the New World’s Golden West.

This is grand touring of not just distance, then, but time and tradition as well.

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2014 Bentley Continental GT V8 S originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 11 Feb 2014 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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