Yahoo Autos The 2025 Bentley Continental GT Will Have 771 Horsepower
The upcoming 2025 model will be the most powerful roadgoing Bentley Continental GT yet, thanks to a plug-in-hybrid powertrain.
The new GT will offer up to 50 miles of EV-only range based on the European WLTP protocol.
Bentley will have hybridized its entire model range by 2026.
It is only a week since Bentley confirmed it would be replacing its recently retired 6-liter W-12 engine with a plug-in hybridized twin-turbo V-8 which, the company told us, would make "more than 740 horsepower." That, it turns out, was a deliberate understatement, because these first teaser images of the revised Continental GT were accompanied by confirmation it will be making peaks of 771 horsepower and 737 pound-feet of torque.
Those figures will make the new car the most powerful roadgoing Continental yet, by a considerable margin; the last-generation Conti GT Speed made 650 horsepower and 665 pound-feet of torque. This is the sort of inflation we should be actively encouraging.
There are still plenty of unknowns. Bentley hasn't released any performance claims for the new powerplant, nor, crucially, a weight figure. This seems certain to have risen given the extra mass added by the plug-in-hybrid powertrain which includes a battery of unstated size, but yet capable of providing a claimed 50 miles of EV range (doubtless under Europe’s optimistic WLTP testing protocol). We will also need to wait to learn peak charging speeds.
But we can extrapolate some more details from the other closely related Volkswagen Group products that are already announced, including the forthcoming Lamborghini Urus SE and the Porsche Panamera Turbo E-Hybrid. Like them, the Bentley will almost certainly have an electric motor between its combustion engine and gearbox—probably the same twin-clutch transmission as the outgoing Conti GT—with drive then delivered to all four wheels. Bentley has also confirmed the new Continental will have four-wheel steering, a 48-volt electromechanical anti-roll system, and all-wheel drive including torque vectoring.
Although wearing a disguise in the accompanying pictures, it looks as if what Bentley describes as being the fourth-generation Continental is a facelift of the retiring third-gen model. Given Bentley's previous commitment to make the entire range hybrid by 2026, we can safely anticipate that the PHEV powertrain will spread rapidly through the rest of the range.
We look forward to being able to tell you more when full details land soon.
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