Drop-top Bentley Continental GTC revealed

Rear leg room is identical to the coupé, while boot space is 235 litres, 123 litres fewer than the hard-top and 23 litres fewer than the previous GT convertible. 

The car features a body-in-white structure that is stiffer and lighter than its predecessor, with a 5% improvement in torsional rigidity and a 20% reduction in structural weight. 

As with the coupé, it gets a 48V electric active roll control system, active all-wheel-drive system and a torque-vectoring-by-brake system. There are four driving modes: Sport, Comfort, Bentley and Custom. 

Britain is an important market for the GT Convertible: the previous-generation GT accounted for 43% of Bentley’s overall UK sales, 5% more than global figures. 

Pricing of the car has yet to be confirmed, but an increase of around 10% over the £156,200 coupé is expected. 

There are two technology packs available at launch: City Specification, which includes traffic-sign recognition and city braking systems; and Touring Specification, including adaptive cruise control, a head-up display and pre-sense braking. V8 versions of both the coupé and convertible are due next year. 

Q&A with JP Gregory, Head of Exterior Design:

Continental GT coupé or convertible? 

“As a car enthusiast, traditionally I’d say I was a coupé guy, but honestly, with my own money I would buy the Convertible. When you think what the car is about, it’s grand touring. With the roof down this is the Bentley experience ramped up to 11.” 

What was the biggest challenge on this car? 

“On a convertible, you want the tonneau line [the line at the back of the roof packaging] to be as smooth and flowing as possible. With the roof down, the car has this elegance and that is largely set up by the smooth tonneau. When you think of other convertibles, they often have a break at the back of the door and that’s normally because they’ve had compromises around the roof packages and not been able to get that flow. That was almost the biggest challenge for us.” 

What’s your favourite detail on the car? 

“The cut-crystal lights: it wasn’t easy and it’s not an interpretation of technology that anyone has done before. We investigated it with the EXP 10 Speed 6 [concept]. Quite often, concept cars are a little bit superfluous but we made sure that when we were developing Speed 6, all of the learnings could, in principle, be applied to production.”