Predictably, it’s an almighty thing on the road, being utterly resolute yet showing plenty of poise. It’s pretty almighty on a private test facility, too. A diary clash meant that, to photograph this car, we had to piggyback another shoot, one taking place at Millbrook Proving Ground. As such, it would have been rude not to get out the telemetry gear and run some numbers.
Sitting at the start of Millbrook’s mile straight in the W12 Mulliner’s near-silent, double-glazed interior, with its milled-aluminium surfaces, endless stitching, quilted-leather door cards and other haute-level Mulliner finishing, you struggle to believe that 7.5sec later you will be doing 100mph. Mostly because that time would make this palatial Bentley faster to triple figures than Porsche’s 991-generation 911 GT3 RS.
But telemetry doesn’t lie. Such refinement and material richness shouldn’t go hand in hand with this sort of pace, yet this a juxtaposition the Continental pulls off better than any other car, and the W12 Mulliner better than any other Continental. As that mammoth engine pumps 664lb ft of torque to four corners almost throughout its 6250rpm scope, and in an unbroken torrent, thanks to a still-excellent dual-clutch gearbox, you reside calmly in the eye of the storm. That said, the potency of the performance stays with you. We took the car well into triple figures, and while Bentley claims 208mph, at Nardò I bet you would hit 215mph or even 220mph. Behind the chintzy grille, this car is an utter hammer.
