Bentley Continental vs Toyota Supra

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.

Thinking of a Toyota GR Supra, eh? Well, come on in, your timing is perfect.

See, up until halfway through last year the Toyota GR Supra only came with an automatic transmission, so I was jumping up and down to drive this version with the six-speed manual.

To me, it’s the way the Supra should be. Not having a manual gearbox in a car like this is like spending the day at an amusement park but not going on any rides.

Not only that but the Supra now has more power than it did when this generation launched in 2019.

See what I mean about your timing?

In a lot of ways the Supra is now complete.

Well that was what I wanted to verify when I tested the entry grade GT, along with what it was like to live with daily, the fuel consumption, warranty and even its practicality; fitting all of me and my stuff.