You won’t believe the options on this £300k BENTLEY!

Believe it or not, that is actually a job. That was a nasty cracking sound. Wa. I spent the last year raving about Bentley's new high performance V8 hybrids because they offer effortless mental performance and improved efficiency. So, could this new Bentega Speed be about to disappoint me? You see, bizarrely, it doesn't have that new hybrid tech. It just has good old-fashioned internal combustion engineness. So, would it feel like a bit of a let down or will it be good to get back to basics? Well, I'm going to investigate if this car is any good by putting it through a series of very important tests. O, get back down. I'm going to go bother some people. It's brutal. I'm Watson and you're watching Car Wag. I know what you're thinking. Are you sure this is a new car? Because it looks exactly like the old Bentega. Yeah, you're not wrong. So, all the bonnet, all the bumper, all that kind of stuff. It's exactly the same as before. And like before, the speed gets like black bits rather than chrome bits. Look, this one's got the optional carbon fiber front splitter. Nice. Down the side, we've got the optional carbon fiber side skirts as well. Probably shouldn't kick them with my foot, but they're covered in PPF, so it's fine. Then at the back, it has the optional carbon fiber roof spoiler and the optional Acropovich exhaust, which you got on the previous generation Speed as well. Anyway, let's have a listen to it. And again, that's enough. Cut it. But none of that is new, is it? There is something new. Have you spotted what it is? Quick, quick, quick, quick. Can you think what it is? What's new? What's new? What's new? It's quite a big thing, actually. And that's a clue. Big, big size. What is it? Allo wheels. For the first time ever in Bentley's history, you can get a 23 in speed wheel. And these are they. But the wheels aren't the only things on this car. They're absolutely massive. You need big brakes on a car such as this cuz it's a big heavy car. And it does have some serious brakes. So, the standard iron discs are 400 mm at the front gripped by six piston calipers and 380 mm at the back gripped by a single piston caliper. These common ceramics though, they're an extra £10,000, but you do get more disc. So, 440 mm here at the front gripped by 10 piston calipers at the back there. 370. So, slightly smaller than the iron disc for some reason. Once again, gripped by a single piston caliper. Why are these small? Anyhow, what really matters is the performance. Obviously, these are the yellow ones, which apparently have the increased stopping power. I just made that up. Shall we find out exactly how good they are at stopping in an emergency brake test from 60 mph? I think we should get and do that, shouldn't we? Right, let's see what we can do. Around 35 m is like the average. That's okay. Don't want it over that too much, but if we can get under it, that'd be grand. Is the speed good at slowing? My god, it is. Those brakes are the job. 31 m. It's like I just dropped anchor. To be fair though, while this is good at slowing, people are mainly going to be buying it for the performance. And um yeah, there could be a problem. Shock horror. Bentley has downsized the Bentega Speed. It used to get a 6 L 12 cylinder engine. Now it has a 4 L 8 cylinder engine. And unlike with the Continental GT, they haven't added a load of hybrid power to like make up for that shortfalling capacity. It's not all bad news though because this engine puts out 650 horsepower, which is actually 15 horsepower more than the old W12. Though torque is down by 50 new meters, it's got 850 as opposed to 900. And normally with a car having less is never really a good thing unless we're talking about less money to buy it or less weight. And actually, this is slightly lighter than the old W12. So, how does that affect the actual speed of the speed? Bentley says his car is quicker than the old W12 speed that did not 60 in 3.9 seconds. And I timed a prefaceelift version over the quarter mile at 11.8 seconds. So, let's see what this one will actually do. Got my specialist timing gear here. One change actually with this new Bentley Bentega speed is that we now have launch control. Didn't have it on the old Bentega. Left on the brake. Flo the throttle. Launch control. Oh, it's brutal. What's the N to 60? 3.46 seconds. So, it is quicker to 60, but is it quicker over the standing quarter mile? Come on. You got to beat 11.8. What we going to get? Classic. Bang on. 11.8 to zero. So, still the same over the quarter mile, but quicker to 60. And most people aren't going to be racing over the quarter mile. I tell you what though, considering how quick this thing is, the interior, it's not quite what you expect. This interior is just fabulous. It's not really any different to the old Bentega Speed, but still look at it. And everything you touch just feels so nice. So nice. So just groping and molesting the car like some weirdo. There is one thing that doesn't feel so great though, and it's these stalks, which you get in an Audi. They're not terrible, but they're just not as nice as the rest of it. I love this wood. I love this leather. I love this quilting. I love this Alcantara. I love the stitching and try as I might, I can't find any wonky stitching anywhere. It's all just perfect. Now, what I do like as well is we've got an infotainment system that works very well. Decent menus, easy to figure out, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but you don't have to control the climate control 3 because you have good oldfashioned buttons. Look, buttons for your seat, buttons for your temperature, buttons for your fan speed, and it all feels very nice. And the digital dials, they're the same in a way. They're digital, of course, cuz it's like 2026, but they look analog. That is great. It's practical as well. We've got big door bins. We've got storage. We've got USBs. We've got 12 volts. We've got wireless charging. We've got a decentiz glove box. I need to fault something about this interior. Some people might say the color scheme. They might go, it's a bit weird. I actually really like it. This wood and this yellow and this green, it all seems to work for me. But is that cuz I'm just a bit odd. What will other people think of it? Right. I'm going to go bother some people. Excuse me. Do you like the interior of my car? Yeah, it's all right. It's all right, ain't it? Hello. How are you? Well, she didn't like me. She thought I was a weird stalker, which is kind of fair. Hello. Hi, Matt. How you doing? I'm all right. You talking to you as if I know you, but like many people seen many of your videos. What you doing? What's happening with your car? Yeah, it's a bit of a one, isn't it? Yeah. What's happened? It's a test engineer car. So, Oh, you you work for Aston? Uh, company that's linked to them. So we do their some of their mileage accumulation on them. Oh, right. So mileage accumulation which means they give you an as to drive around in to put miles on. Yeah, that's a tough gig, is it? It's hard work. Yeah, especially a beautiful V12 like that, right? I don't know whether you're going to be able to answer this question then if you're working for Aston Martin. But what do you think of the color of this interior in particular? That works for me. Yeah. Good, isn't it? I like it. Yeah, I think most people do. Probably could throw a little bit of carbon in there as well. Maybe that's so Aston Martin of you. Nice to meet you anyway. Cheers. Enjoy your driving round and round. Let's just ask these people. Hello. How you doing today? What do you think of the interior color scheme of my car? The green and yellow with the wood. What do you like it? Is it good or is it bad? Um, you be honest. I won't be offended. You wouldn't have it yourself. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. Sorry about that. It's okay. It's okay. Okay. All right then. You trying to sell it or not? No. No. I'm just trying to get people's opinion on the interior. The interior in particular because I think it's quite brave interior. I like it personally. Yeah. What? It's a Bentley, isn't it? Yeah, it's Bentley's nice, isn't it? Yeah. What was your thing on the side here? Camera. Yeah, it's a camera. I drive around filming cars. Nice to meet you. Have a good day. So, the interior is a bit Marmite then. But can I uncover anything divisive about the way this car goes down the country road? This Bentega Speed handles extremely well considering just how heavy it is. So, it weighs in at 2,451 kg, which is a lot. But actually, it's 50 kilos lighter than the old Bentega Speed. See, that W12 engine is just so heavy, and it means that your weight saving is over the nose, which means this is a bit more pointy than it was before. Also, it's lighter by 8 whole kilos than the Continental GT Speed. That's because that car has all the electrical gins, which just adds weight. though obviously that car's low to the ground so it has a lower center of gravity and obviously does handle slightly better but this does really well for a big car because well it doesn't defy physics it operates at the very boundaries of physics thanks to some technology so you've got an active anti-roll bar system which props up the car when you go around a corner stops it leaning so much in the bends keeps it nice and flat and you've also got rear wheel steering as standard you only used to get it on the long wheelbase model but here you've got it on every single version including the speed and what it does it helps the are turn slightly quicker when you're going at speed. Makes you feel more agile as well as more maneuverable when you're in town. Also, when you put this car into sports mode, it stiffens the suspension by 15% more than it stiffens the suspension in the standard Bentega. So, I'm going to do that now. Makes it louder as well. Whoa. Then this thing is an absolute hula gun. Wow. Thing is though, I still don't think it handles quite as well as an Aston Martin 707 if you want to see my full in-depth video review of that car. Click on the pop out banos scan the QR code or follow the link in the description. But there is something that Bentley has done to this thing that makes it. I'm surprised they've done it. It's like poof. So Bentley have reconfigured the stability control system. So if I put it into dynamic mode, apparently it will allow the car to drift. I'll believe it when I see it. That's a no. Try in second gear. It just felt like under steer to me. Maybe you can do it like when you're hooning it on a twisty road but trying to power over steer. No, I'm just giving it lock. It just doesn't want to do it. Let's just try one more thing. Maybe if I turn it all the way off. Let's go into auto mode. It might do it better. Full lock. Floor it. No. And it doesn't even like it. It thought I was going to roll over. Don't know what all that's about in the blooming press bump because it won't donut. That's for sure. Not like I was expecting it to. Maybe it will drift if you're going high speed into corners and stuff and on a racetrack. But yeah, it won't power over steer from loads of speed. Doesn't like it. To be fair, you probably won't want to do much drifting in this car anyway because you'll soon eat through the tires and they are rather expensive. And um yeah, that brings me on to the car's price. A standard bed is just over £170,000. This one with options costs more than the average house in the UK. It's almost £300,000. That's because it's fitted with over 70 grand worth of options. Madness. So, what happens if you want a Bentley, but you've only got enough money for the options? There's a solution. While Bentleys may cost a lot of money new, they do suffer severe depreciation. So, unless you're the person buying it new, that's actually a good thing because you can get some amazing deals on used Bentleys. For instance, here's a 10-year-old Bentley Bentega W12 I found on CarWow with just over £30,000 on the clock, and it's available for less than £60,000. So, less than the options on this car. There is always a risk when you're buying used though and that's that you don't know the history of the car unless of course you do a car vertical history check. Did one on that used Bentley on car everything was fine. However, here's an example of a Bentley Bentega which doesn't have a fine car vertical report. In fact, it's had collision on the front end was repaired, put back on the road. So, if you had to buy this car, you might not know that it had that damage if it wasn't for the car vertical history check. And that's why if you're buying a used car, make sure you go to carver vertical and use the code car wow for 20% off. You can do that now by clicking on the pop out banner or scanning the QR code on screen or just follow the link in the description of this video. The question is though, this particular car here at almost 300 grand, will your passengers actually feel that it's worth that much? This Bentley is lovely in the back and like with some other cars, Bentley don't cheap out with the materials in the rear. They're just the same as in the front. So, it's all the same fixtures and fittings. So posh and it's also really practical as well. You can actually get a long wheelbase version of this car, but I don't think you need it. So Jack, who is driving, he's like 191 cm long is long. But look, I still got decent knee room there. Head room's good as well. There's plenty of foot space. Can stretch out underneath the seat in front. Now, if you need to carry three at once, yes, there is a bit of a hump in the floor, but there's so much foot room. And this seat is so wide and so deep, and the shoulder room is so big, there's enough room for three people in the back. I mean, this seat is a bit firm, so you probably don't want to do that, but I think that's fine. And look, I can slide the seats like that. There's also recline function, and it's quite practical. We've got big door bins. You've got like posh folders on the seat backs, your 12vt socket, and your USBC's. And I like this as well. So, there's a little gadget down here, which I use to control some of the functions. So, here it is. Look, I can do things like control the stereo and various other features of the car. I can control my seats. So these outer rear seats, they have heating function and cooling function as well, which is very nice. Also, what I can do is if I just want to like sit back and relax, I can shut all the blinds at the press of a button. Look, close the blinds. Close all. There we go. And I can do this as well with my headrest. Get comfy. And this is a car you can genuinely get comfy in because you got acoustic glass. So, it's all very, very quiet in here. And the air suspension self-levels and it just wafts up the road. It's lovely. There is one thing that if you're the driver, you might be a bit worried about though and it might be a little bit stressed. It's the economy. So, let's find out what it is. So, Jack, what we doing? So, it's currently doing 16 MPG. Okay. So, not terrible, but not great either. I think if you're doing a lot of chauffeering, especially a lot of shaing around town, you're probably going to be better off with a hybrid. And really, if you want to be sharing people, you might be better off with the Bentley Flying Spur. See my for different wish to use the online speech recognition service as well. Cancel. Accept the license agreement. Canc Shutter up. Why do they do that? The man every manufacturer does it. I think it's only a problem if you're a motoring journalist talking about cars and saying the brand name. Anyway, yeah. If you want to see my fall in depth video review of the Flying Spur, click on the pop out banner there. Scan the QR code on screen or follow the link in the description of this video. However, there is a way that the Flying Spur isn't quite as good as this and it's it's practicality. The Bentega Speed has the biggest boot of any Bentley on sale. I'll show you now, but I love the way you open it by pressing the B. No messing around with buttons down there on some other cars. Anyhow, it's 484 L, which is a smidge bigger than the hybrid version of the Bentley. And it's bigger than the long wheelbase or the four-seater versions because they have slightly smaller boots because of their big clever reclinery seats. Also, it's bigger than the boots on the Flying Spur and the Continental GT because of all their hybrid channel guns. And it's a hatchback, so it's practical. Opens nice and wide. So, how much stuff can you get into it? Should we find out? What do you reckon? How many suitcases? Six. Seven. Till we find out. Let's do it. Can you pass them to me, please? Come on. Come on. I'm not going to slam the boot down on the Bentega because it's quite an expensive boot. If I it, it's going to be expensive to fix. Okay, maybe I'll give it a bit of assistance. Just a bit. Come on. We're going to do 10. We're not I'm not going to risk it. Too expensive to mess about with what? Oh, wait. Get back down. It's nine. Still good. Anyhow, um let's move on to some other elements of practicality, such as the practicalities of driving such a big thing like this around town. All the stuff that make it good as a high-speed cruiser, like the soundproofing and the air suspension just do a great job here as well. So, I'm not feeling any potholes or anything like that. In fact, I'm going to go into comfort mode to slacken the suspension off even more. Can't hear any of the what's going on outside, which is good. See, I can't hear that diesel rattle from that truck. It's chilling here. Also, the gearbox, I don't even notice it's changing gears. So, it can be smooth when you're going slow and it can be rapid when you're going quick. It's great. And even though it's huge, I mean, it's like over 5 m long. I've got a good view out, so I'm not too worried that I'm going to like bash into stuff. The only real problem is that this pillar here. However, what about maneuverability? That was always an issue with the old Bentega speed. But once again, the rear wheel steering comes into its own here as well because it reduced the turning circle to 11.4 meters, which actually pretty good. And because we've got surround view cameras as standard. If I should be able to make it around here without curving my 23 in rims. Please don't curve, Watson. Oh, I've got the angle all wrong. Have I? I think I've got it just right. Do it in a w. Do it in a wanna. We're going to do it in a wanner. I'm going to do it in a one. Yes. There's no one here to witness what I've just done. Where's every Normally there's cars like backed up and like waiting for me to get it wrong, but where was everyone? That's annoying. That brings me on to annoying things about the Bentley Bentega Speed. I think it's a bit crude for a Bentley to have exposed cup holders. I mean, many other cars have like covers for them. Like Volvos have covers for the cup holders here in the front. Also, it's the same story in the back. Look in the armrest exposed. Doesn't pop out. doesn't have a cover. Not good enough, Bentley. Not good enough. This name stereo is brilliant, but I don't know why Bentley insists on putting speaker covers that are effectively cheese grers here in the doors because I've brushed myself on them before and like made my fingers bled. If I get my nail and I do this shaving my bloody nail. Look at it. Can you see that? Shaving my nail. Look at that. So sharp. Health and safety. While you can turn off the lane departure warning by pressing and holding that button down there, which is handy to turn off the speed limit warning, which you have to do every time you start the car, you always forget. You have to press this button here to bring up the driver assistance menu. Then you have to press the cog and then it's there. Go away, youing annoying feature. Fine. In the interest of fairness to Bentley, I'm going to show you some features now that I actually think are quite cool on the car. Not annoying at all. such as these center caps, which as you can see, spin round so that when you drive, they always end up the right way up. Look, which is great when you're doing videos or photography of a Bentley. They actually copied that from Rolls-Royce, but I don't care. You get full sunshielding in the Bentega. Look, you got a double visor and you have the extendable side visor. Most cars have soundproofing on the underside of the bonnet so you don't hear the engine rattling away. But on the Bentley, they have quilted soundproofing to match the quilting in the cabin. Of course they do. You can get the car with something called wellness seats. So you select that. What it'll do is use the heated and cool function on the seat together. The smart function to blow either hot or cold air up your bottom depending on what is the ideal temperature for you. And it has postural adjustment so the seat moves about a bit so you don't get an achy back on long drive. The soft closed doors not just on the back but also on the front. I love the way Bentley has made the indicator sound like the ticking of a grandfather clock. It would be peaceful if it wasn't just a little bit too quick. It's as though time is passing quicker than it normally does. I can't believe it. It's already the end of the video. That means it's time for my verdict. Back to the original question, then. Am I disappointed that this doesn't have Bentley's latest plug-in hybrid system? It does lack a bit of the performance of the very latest hybrids. But if it did have that system, it'd be about 200 kilos heavier and it wouldn't handle quite as well. So, no, I'm happy that it is just a normal internal combustion engine car. And I don't mind too much that they've downsized the engine. The bigger problem for this car is where it sits. You see, I really, really like it, and I especially love the interior, but ultimately, if I wanted the best handling SUV, I'd probably go for the Aston Martin 707. If I wanted the best sounding, I'd go for the Ferrari Purangu with its natur. If I wanted the most luxurious feeling, I'd want a Rolls-Royce Cullin. And if I wanted the most in-your-face kind of crazy, I would go with the Lamborghini Urus. So, this sort of sits in an odd place of really good, lovely car, but not the luxury SUV I would choose. And that's regardless of whether it was plug-in hybrid or just straight internal combustion engine as it is. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a like. If you want to watch some other videos, click on the video windows. And if you want to see how much money you can save and you'd like to browse the latest offers on new cars, click on the car logo. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next