Auto News 5

In our recent drive of the outgoing, first-generation Bentley Continental, several of us expressed the desire, perhaps naïve, that the new Conti GT might have its engine in a different location than in front of the front axle. What, did we think they were going to wedge that W-12 into the back seat? Silly us. There's simply no getting around the fact that the Conti GT has been, and will continue to be, a short-nosed car that's packing a lot of hardware into a very small space. And, as Dr. Franz-Josef Paefgen, Bentley's patrician chief, explains, if they were to mount the engine on top of the axle, the car would have a very high center of gravity.