First Drive: 2021 Bentley Bentayga V8 Review

I don’t want to put too fine a point on this, but the Bentayga is, to put it bluntly, the most important car in Bentley’s history. A Luxury SUV (the first of its kind according to Bentley), the original Bentayga was the cash cow to keep Crewe able to also make amazing low-volume stuff like the Flying Spur. Now it constitutes around 45-50 per cent of all Bentleys sold. This car is important. And it’s not just important to Bentley, but to the whole industry. If the Bentayga wasn’t a success there would be no Aston Martin DBX, no Rolls-Royce Cullinan, no Lamborghini Urus, and we wouldn’t all be flinching at the idea of the incoming Ferrari Purosangue. Sure the Cayenne had shown low-volume manufacturers could make themselves a tasty buck from an SUV, but not luxury brands. So into this now flooded market, Bentayga V2 needs to be good.

Let’s not beat around the bush, the original Bentayga wasn’t a looker. Not at all. It’s a big old lump that was designed to be big, seem big and be a nice place to be. So having nailed the ‘big and nice place to be’ brief, the second go allowed Bentley to make it look better. Better is the crucial word here, because that’s what it is, better. Not good looking, but better looking. While cars like the Maserati Levante and Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio have shown that SUVs can look good, Bentley are showing that, in the luxury market, as long as it’s imposing, it doesn’t really matter.

The styling cues all over are dragged and dropped from the Continental GT. There’s the cut-glass headlights (designed to look like a whisky glass), the wide oval rear lights, the muscular chin and the concave bum.

The side profile is very similar to the old car and the rear wheel arch remains the same as before, big, muscular and with a doorhandle plonked onto it.

Other nice new features outside include the oval exhausts, of which there are two, split into four actual exhausts outlets. And yes, they are actual outlets, we scrambled under the car to make sure, and they do connect to something.

But still, the main key here is – big. The Bentayga is 5.1m long, 2.2m wide (including those bus-like mirrors) and nearly 1.8m tall. It’s not as long as the sadly departed Mulsanne, but it’s as near as makes no real difference, and the other numbers more than make up.

The Bentayga weighs 2,416kg, and yet it will hit 62mph from a standing start in 4.4 seconds. Which is a set of numbers that just don’t seem to go together. But when you sit in the beautifully appointed interior, select ‘sport’ on the rotary dial with a mindboggling number of options (thanks to an off-road pack), and mash the throttle into the carpet, then you believe. The engine is a 4.0-litre, twin-turbocharged V8, producing around 550PS (404kW) at around 6,000rpm – which is quite revvy for such a big car. But it’s the torque number that is important, which is 770Nm (568lb ft) and is available from just 1,960rpm. So basically as long as you get just above idle, you’ll get a thump to the back – and not just because you’ve left the massage seats on. All that torque is routed to all four wheels by a torsen diff, which largely sends it backwards, after an eight-speed ZF gearbox has decided what to do with it. Gearchanges are smooth in automatic and ponderous with the paddles, but who is going to use the paddles?

The Bentayga’s damping and suspension are works of art, but there’s just no way of keeping 2.4 tonnes of metal stable when you launch that much torque through it, or indeed when you grab the brakes. The Bentayga will lurch backwards, as you would expect, but gather itself together very quickly. You don’t feel like you’re off for a wild ride on a yet-to-be-broken stallion, just that the car has mass and it is undeniable.

That suspension by the way, is double wishbone at the front, multi-link all around and with 48V electric anti-roll bars. Which explains why, when you approach your first corner, turn with some trepidation, and brace your back across to the inside, you feel like a bit of a prat, as the car simply does not roll. I’m sure there’s a point at which it will (moose test anyone?) but in comparison to what you expect, the Bentayga just ignores corners as if they weren’t there. This, coupled with very light steering, means that hoovering up the B-roads is the stuff of child’s play, despite the hulking volume you’re dragging around.

Stick the car in comfort and cruise along and you’ll feel cocooned from the world, other than the odd unsettling bump (this isn’t a Flying Spur) and a small whistle to remind you just how big the wingmirrors really are.

There’s also a large amount of off-road settings, including hill descent, but if we said we’d tried any of them, we’d be lying.

Ignore the outside, this is the important bit on the Bentayga. The old car looked good, the wing-style concept of the dash was nice, and it was all very nicely put together. But the infotainment system looked like it came from a Golf and the signature clock looked a bit, well, plonked. It didn’t need a complete overhaul, but we could mark it as an A- and ask Bentley to see us after class. Now Bentley has it right. The Golftainment system has gone, in its place is a stunning, 10.9-inch touchscreen, which is both rimless, and genuinely nice to look at. The wing concept is now repeated in the air-vents, allowing the clock to sit betwixt them as if it’s nesting. Leather, as you would expect for a company that hand inspects every hide, is exquisite, with diamond stitching everywhere.

The wheel is the same as in all other Bentleys, pretty standard fare, and the centre console is nice, with masses of storage for whatever you need. My two quibbles with the front would be the indicator stalks, which feel straight out of an A3, and the wireless charging matt, which only charges in the middle, but has no way of holding your phone in place other than friction. One spirited getaway and charging is suspended.

In the back there is a lot of headroom, even for those over six-foot, although legroom in the five-seat version could be better. We’ll have to try the four-seater – which comes with bigger chairs – to let you know if that makes a difference. The best thing about the back though, is the marvellous little touchscreen controller. Which isn’t just static in the centre, it pops out at the touch of a button – actually “pops out” does it a disservice, it’s is presented forward to you on a magnet – and then controls pretty much everything. You can use this for seat settings, climate control, blinds, you can even see the speed the car is travelling at, in case you need to tell someone to make a change. The boot, as you would expect, is cavernous, 482 litres in this-five seat version, although it looks even more, and 392 in the four-seater (because of the bigger seats).

As standard you get that brilliant infotainment system with gesture control, navigation, DAB radio, in-car WiFi hotspot and the touchscreen remote in the rear, but as you’d expect there are many, many options to choose from. There’s the Naim Premium Audio kit for £6,660, for example, or the ‘All-Terrain Specification’, which brings underfloor protection and an intriguing “luggage management system” for £3,610. The ‘Touring Spec’ (adaptive cruise control, heads-up display, night vision, lane assist) is £6,415, Comfort Spec rear seats are £4,290, ‘Blackline’ dark trim on the outside would cost you £5,380 and the ‘Mulliner Driving Specification’, which includes sportier looking wheels, diamond quilting on the seats, sports pedals and more, and that’s a beefy £11,635. Within reason, whatever you want, you can have it.

What you want from a luxury SUV is the ability to waft around, with a bunch of stuff in the back, the kids (if you really want), incredible amounts of comfort, and oodles of presence on the road. And that is exactly what the Bentayga gives you. While the outsides won’t be to everyone’s taste – it splits opinion in the GRR office – the interior is spot on, with the likes of the DBX being put a little to shame. Somehow it also feels light and easy to drive, managing to be easier to manoeuvre than the much smaller Alfa Romeo Stelvio – a car which hates moving at under 10mph.

This Bentayga feels like the follow up to a difficult to listen to, but promising, concept album. It feels like a confident Bentley which knows where it wants to be, and while the debate over luxury SUVs will rage and rage, this car will keep Bentley here. The fact that it’s a good car underneath it all should make it palatable for the rest of us.