Bentley reveals Continental V8 12 | 12 | 2011

THE BENTLEY BOYS are back in town: or at least, they will be when they arrive at the Detroit Motor Show next month with their all-new V8.

The long-awaited powerplant, which Bentley say will deliver an "instantly recognisable growl”, will be offered initially in special versions of the Continental GT and GTC: they'll be identifiable by their black grilles, red badges and ‘figure eight’ exhaust pipes.

Bentley will position the new V8 — which produces 500bhp and 487lb/ft of torque — below the existing 6.0-litre W12 Continentals, which will stay in production.

The V8 Continental, which uses a new eight-speed ZF automatic transmission, will take less than five seconds to cover the 0-62mph sprint and will accelerate on to a maximum of 180mph.

See more official photos of the Bentley Continental V8

Fuel consumption? Bentley won't release those details, along with the CO2 emissions, until next year.

Worth noting though they expect the V8-powered Continentals to cover more than 500 miles on a single tank of fuel. That probably says more about the size of the fuel tank than the economy of the engine.

The company has also yet to confirm whether the new V8 has been engineered to run on bio-ethanol, as the 6.0-litre W12 does.

The introduction of the new engine is in line with the promise the Crewe-based company made three years ago to deliver a new powertrain with fuel consumption and CO2 emissions reduced by 40% compared with the W12 engine that has until now powered all Continental models.

Bentley unveils its new Continental GTC

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Jim McGill