Juliana here. This is the car I keep reaching for when a test is genuinely about distance, not a single dramatic road — and it’s lost exactly once in this series, on a road specifically chosen to reward lightness over everything else.
659 horsepower, built for a specific kind of drive
The number is real and worth respecting: 659 hp from a twin-turbo W12, 0-100 in 3.7 seconds, a 335 km/h top speed that most guests will never need and that’s genuinely reassuring to have in reserve anyway. But the number isn’t really the point of this car. The point is what it’s engineered to do with that power over four or five hours, not four or five minutes.
Why AWD matters more here than in most convertibles
A W12 flagship this powerful, in a convertible body with the additional weight a folding roof mechanism always brings, needs genuine all-wheel drive to put that power down confidently rather than just quickly. This isn’t a car built to win a straight-line drag race against lighter rivals — it’s built so that 659 hp is always available and always usable, in weather and conditions a RWD convertible would need to treat more cautiously.
What it’s actually won, and what it’s lost
This car has already made its case twice in this series: it won the Riviera sunset comparison on completeness against the SF90 Spider and Rolls-Royce Dawn, and it lost the ultimate Riviera cruiser test to the lighter Roma Spider on a road specifically chosen to reward agility over comfort. Both results are honest, and both make the same underlying point: this is the right car when the road and the day call for comfort over lightness, and the wrong one when they don’t.
Who this car is actually for
The Continental GTC Speed isn’t trying to be the most exciting convertible in this fleet, and it doesn’t need to be — it’s for the guest planning a genuinely long day behind the wheel, who wants four real seats, real weather-independence, and enough reserve power that the drive never feels like it’s working hard to keep up with the itinerary.
The Bentley Continental GTC Speed is bookable out of Monaco, the French Riviera, Munich, and Paris. Get in touch if you’d like to drive it yourself.