Bentley’s go-faster Bentayga derivative swaps W12 shove for V8 gargle and more besides
A drift mode and titanium plumbing from a respected but rather extroverted Slovenian supplier are not what we commonly associate with SUVs, but the Bentley Bentayga Speed taps into its maker’s more humorous side. This is the company that has successfully gone GT3 racing with the improbable, 2.3-tonne Continental GT and once enlisted Juha Kankkunen to fire a bio-ethanol-powered, rag-top Conti Supersports to more than 200mph on a frozen stretch of the Baltic Sea. Nobody can say the company doesn’t have a bit of an unpredictable streak.Talking of unpredictable, the powertrain in the new Bentayga Speed is not what we expected. The long-running W12 engine that has long powered Speed versions of various Bentleys has been retired, and in the Continental GT Speed and Flying Spur Speed, it has been replaced with a plug-in hybrid V8 set-up. You would assume that the Bentayga Speed would go in the same direction, but it doesn’t. Instead, it it has received an extra-high-power version of the familiar 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8.
