Sticking the landing. Going out with a bang. Leaving on a high note. Whatever colloquial shorthand you want to use, it fails to fully capture the epic, artful indulgence Bentley has poured into its final and most extreme Continental GT. This uber version is sporty opulence distilled, the purest expression of a grand touring fantasy, a creation that could have been daydreamed by a future engineer sketching on an algebra notebook at a Riyhad boarding school. And what if it had a…!
Rest assured, the Bentley Batur has it.
A six-liter, 740 horsepower twin-turbo W-12 (the final and most outrageous version of VW group’s legendary W-12) which transports the 5,000 lb. Batur from 0-60 in 3.3 seconds, a highly adjustable chassis with hundreds of handling variables, control knobs in 3D printed 18k gold, a gradient paint job Bentley calls “guitar fade”, and all the customization that come with a Mulliner coach build. There are countless possible combinations and only 18 Baturs in the wild (sorry, sold out) each in a color unique to that particular car.
The Batur’s seats are like perfect parents: rich, forgiving, unconditionally supportive. In their soft, sturdy embrace one can fully conjure the deep, smug satisfaction that should be standard equipment in a $2 million dollar coupe. And like a loving home, the Batur’s cabin is one you may never want to leave, especially when you’re using all that power and agility the way the technical dreamers in Crewe had in mind. Can I really be this comfortable and confident screaming around corners like a kid in a hand-me-down GTI?
The Batur’s goal, according to Paul Williams, Bentley’s Chief Technical Officer Mulliner & Motorsport is to push the range of luxury and performance in one car ever wider. “It’s kind of the ultimate of what Benley can offer — even more performance, even more luxury, even more personalization. We're not trying to beat something else around the track in Nurburgring, but you could jump in the Batur in England and drive to the south of France and still be in fantastic shape.”
We’re driving a shorter distance today, but it’s as if nature carved a Batur-centric obstacle course out of volcanic rock off the West African coast. Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, is also the most mountainous and as we surge through S-curve climbing ever higher from the rocky shoreline, up along thrilling curves, blasting through an alpine forest that could pass for Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains, and then finally, up above the clouds for a sharp view of Mt. Teide, Tenerife’s nearly 13,000 foot tall volcano. Whether it’s the ludicrously refined, hyper adaptive suspension or the old world charm of wood, leather, and precious metals, the Batur confers a level of invincibility rarely experienced on four tires. That this insanely capable beast is now at the highest point of the island seems inevitable, but its perch atop the food chain would be secure on an island of any size or really any landmass at all.
Tenerife offers a fitting topographical metaphor - cruising our way up the island’s highest peak in a car that has reached its full potential, the eruptive power of a volcano (the Batur is named for the volcanic Lake Batur in the Philippines), enjoying both the beach and the mountains, the luxury and the spine-tingling driving. You get the idea. A one of a kind place for a one of a kind car.
But it’s not just a victory lap for the Continental, the cornerstone car on which Bentley’s modern era was built; it’s also a fond, fossil fuel farewell party for the engine that powered all those GTs and more, but will be mothballed as Bentley’s electric era begins. And if you’re retiring a legendary workhorse like the W-12, a VW-built, cross brand MVP (which started in VW’s overachieving Phaeton and a handful of Toureags, but mostly powered Bentleys, more than 100,000 of them from the first GT in 2003 to the Bentaygas) you really ought to set it free…..really, really free….to let it reach its full potential before relegating it to some glass case in the nostalgia wing at Crewe.
Batur’s designers describe the car’s stance as “resting beast” but to experience the car’s confident performance (that twin turbo W12) and its panther-like agility, you have to poke the beast up from time to time. As we ascend through a cloud forest we’re confronted with dozens of obstacles in the form of rented Polos and Fiat hatchbacks searching for their vacation villas, all easily dispatched. But even passing faster vehicles happens in a flash. The Batur is almost a different species, like a Ferrari biding its time in a flock of Subarus or Bo Jackson showing up at a high school tryout. A few seconds later, you’re in the clear, transported in front of the car you were just behind, now confidently picking up speed at a rate that would be alarming if everything weren’t so smooth and commanding…or if the Batur’s four-wheel steering and delicate suspension didn’t prepare it so well for the coming turns. It’s big and comfortable and luxurious, and while you feel the heft of it — and it is a heavy car — it is fast. Two and a half tonnes of fast twitch muscle beneath a posh, candy-colored surface.
Bentley went to great lengths to stick this particular landing: After all, the Batur is not just the last Bentley GT, the car that transformed the company from a beloved but musty boat builder to a global superstar, but also the last one to be powered by the storied W-12. Ultimately, the Batur is to be the last combustible engine car the company will likely ever build. And while Bentley will no doubt excel in a more sanitized, electric era, it’s fitting that this one feels like a mechanical achievement, both a nod to a romantic, luxuriously bespoke past and a full-throttle embrace of a ferocious future.
