Bentley Continental vs Jeep Gladiator

What's the difference?

Close your eyes for me and try to picture a two-door vehicle with a thumping V8 engine, 575kW and a whopping 1000Nm on tap, a 0-100km/h burst of 3.2 seconds and a top speed of 335km/h. Does it look like a Ferrari in your head? Something else Italian, or German perhaps?

Well, what if I tell you it also weighs 2.5 tonnes. Are you imagining a luxe SUV with the rear doors removed, perhaps? Think again, because what we’re discussing here is arguably the very best of Britain (albeit German-owned), the all new and highly impressive Bentley Continental GT Speed.

Gone is the famous and fabulous W12 engine, never to return (Bentley was long the world’s biggest maker of 12-cylinder engines, henceforth it will make exactly none), to be replaced by the one and only power plant the company will now offer, in various tunes, in all of its ICE cars (yes, a Bentley EV is coming, of course).

All that torque isn’t just from the big 4.0-litre V8, it’s also an 'Ultra Performance Hybrid', which will allow you to drive up to 81km in fully silent electric mode, should you be so boring.

We flew to a posh and very private members-only race track in Japan to find it out if this really is, as Bentley suggests, the everyday supercar.

If you believe there should be a ute version of everything, Jeep has long been there for you with a tray-backed Gladiator version of its iconic Wrangler off-roader.

But the Gladiator has hardly attracted the same love as its mainstream ute rivals, preferring a more lifestyle-oriented vibe, which it leans into extra hard for this 2026 update.

While it might look pretty much identical from the outside, Jeep has made some pretty significant changes underneath to make it a better overall offering, with a nice reduction in price, too.

So is it now worth your consideration? Read on to find out.