Bentley Continental GTC 2023

The Continental GTC is the convertible version of Bentley's Continental GT, built at Crewe. This is the second-generation car, which moved onto the Volkswagen Group MSB platform it shares with the Porsche Panamera; the front axle went forward and the engine moved back, which is why the proportions changed so visibly in 2018. The fabric roof is a Z-fold design that stows under the rear deck in roughly nineteen seconds and can be operated on the move at low speed, and its colour is specified as part of the same commissioning process as the paint and the hides.

The W12 is the engine that defines the car. Bentley's 6.0-litre twin-turbo twelve is effectively two narrow-angle six-cylinder banks on one crankshaft, which is how twelve cylinders fit into an engine bay of ordinary length, and across the second-generation Continental range it was quoted between roughly 626 and 650 hp depending on specification. Drive goes to all four wheels through an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, and W12 cars also carry Bentley's 48-volt active anti-roll system, which is what stops a car of this mass leaning in the way its weight suggests it should.

Why a 2023 W12 Convertible Closes a Bentley Era

Crewe built the W12 for two decades and more than 100,000 engines before ending production in 2024, which makes a late W12 Continental a closing chapter rather than a mid-life model. What follows is smaller and, on paper, quicker: the Continental Supersports is a rear-drive V8 quoted at 657 hp that trades cylinders for weight saving, and the rest of the range moves to plug-in hybrid V8s. Neither approach reproduces the particular quality of the W12, which is torque delivered so early and so quietly that the car feels geared for continents rather than corners.

In the Batman Garage collection the GTC is the long-distance car, and next to the Aston Martin Vanquish it shows two British answers to the same question: one built around noise and rear-drive theatre, one around insulation and all-weather traction. Related luxury flagship coverage runs from the 2027 BMW 7 Series to the older hand-built exotica in our Legends section.