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" Silverstone, England\u2014It&amp;#039;s all about the numbers: 500 bhp at 6000 rpm, a jaw-dropping 487 lb.-ft. of torque from 1700 to 5000 rpm, 180-plus-mph top speed, sub-5 seconds to 60 mph and a 500-mile range from a single tank of gas. That&amp;#039;s right, gasoline not diesel.   Welcome to Bentley&amp;#039;s world of cylinder deactivation, where Bentley&amp;#039;s version of the 4.0-liter V-8 announced by Audi late last year slots under the hood of the Continental GT and GTC.         2012 Bentley Continental GT V8     Brian Gush, Bentley&amp;#039;s chassis and powertrain director, is at pains to point out that this simply isn&amp;#039;t a re-badged Audi V-8: &amp;quot;We were there right from the beginning; this was a joint effort with our Audi colleagues. There were specific demands that we had and that needed to be met; for instance, we brought the concept of cylinder deactivation to the program.&amp;quot;   Although Bentley already has deactivation technology on the pushrod 6.75-liter V-8 used in the Mulsanne, the new engine&amp;#039;s system uses a different process to shut down half the cylinders during light load operations. Gush describes the difference as the &amp;quot;Mulsanne uses lost motion in the valve; here we use zero motion as the cam moves across to the zero cam.&amp;quot; On the `A&amp;#039; bank it&amp;#039;s cylinders one and four that are shut down; on the `B&amp;#039;, it&amp;#039;s the two inner cylinders.         2012 Bentley Continental GT V8     In the deactivated cylinders, the pistons continue to move because they are being driven by the crankshaft; before the valves close, the combustion chambers are filled with fresh air with the fuel injection and ignition shut down. This intake of air lowers cylinder pressure acting as an air spring, effectively reducing the energy needed to move the pistons\u2014an important factor for increased efficiency.   While Audi uses active engine mounts and active noise control to mask the V-4 engine note, Bentley has gone down a different route as Paul Williams, Bentley&amp;#039;s head of powertrain engineering, explained: &amp;quot;Bentley had issues with that approach, especially if you&amp;#039;re buying a high-end audio system\u2014an audiophile wants pure sound; he doesn&amp;#039;t want that underwritten by the strange behaviour of a counteractive mechanical accompaniment.         2012 Bentley Continental GT V8     &amp;quot;We had ANC and active mounts in development cars, but we decided to try and get levels of refinement even better than Audi by using a pure engineering approach. We took a very detailed approach to the mount and exhaust development and use the inherent acoustic properties of these systems to eliminate the unwanted noises.   &amp;quot;Bentley has an advantage over Audi because the car is more cosseted, that&amp;#039;s its nature. We need the authenticity of engineering.&amp;quot;   The car uses switchable mounts, with soft and harder modes, just for idle that are controlled by the ECU in idle in one mode and then changed.         2012 Bentley Continental GT V8     The bottom end of the engine is common with Audi, but the Bentley has a unique induction system with far lower pressure losses than the W-12 and a pair of twin-scroll turbos blowing at up to 33 psi. Bentley&amp;#039;s V-8 also has a unique wiring harness.   Packaging was a challenge in that airflow management was crucial to the car running at top speed under hot ambient conditions. Paradoxically, the V-8 is actually a half inch longer than the W-12 but, most importantly, it is significantly lighter, taking a full 55 lb. off the front axle. This allowed the chassis team to stiffen the front anti-roll bar slightly and re-jig both the geometry with the power steering and retune the Continuous Damping Control.         2012 Bentley Continental GT V8     Confession time: Although a lifelong Bentley fan, I&amp;#039;ve always been left a little cold by the modern interpretation of the Continental. Not just from a design standpoint, but also dynamically\u2014that W-12 swinging away up front like the opposite version of early 911s and that dreaded &amp;quot;higher polar moment of inertia&amp;quot; effect. Moreover, having your first drive of a car on a racetrack that includes part of the British Grand Prix circuit at Silverstone is not going to be representative: a massively grippy surface that&amp;#039;s smoother than marble is not going to tell how the car rides.   Yes, in the hands of four-time world rally champion Juha Kankkunen, we&amp;#039;ll see just how rapid the car is, but &amp;quot;slow&amp;quot; is a word that Juha, despite his excellent English, doesn&amp;#039;t seem to understand\u2014or hear. So, when he&amp;#039;s demonstrating to me the car&amp;#039;s finer points we are reaching cornering speeds that I can only dream about achieving.         2012 Bentley Continental GT V8     Still he&amp;#039;s brave enough to passenger me around Silverstone&amp;#039;s national circuit for a few laps but only after telling me, in that sing-songy Finnish accent, that if he thinks I am being a complete idiot he will activate the electronic park brake and bring proceedings to a very sudden and no doubt, tire-smokingly quick halt.   Immediately noticeable is how the car&amp;#039;s overall balance is much improved, and long gone is the W-12&amp;#039;s tendency to plow into understeer when pushed hard. The lighter V-8 takes weight off the nose, making the steering sharper and turn-in crisper, aided by a 40/60 torque split front to rear.   Add to that a V-8 exhaust note that ranges from bassy burble at idle to a midrange growl and, finally a NASCAR-style howl, and Bentley has given its 2-door coupe a whole new, more youthful character.         2012 Bentley Continental GT V8     During the course of an afternoon&amp;#039;s drive on open roads in an early prototype I saw instant fuel consumption figures range from a guzzling 3.9 mpg under brutal acceleration up to 21.6 mpg when cruising at 1800 rpm or, about 80 mph. And I was told by Williams, that if I&amp;#039;d eased back to 70\u201375 mph when the cylinder deactivation is still in its sweet spot, that I would have seen figures closer to 23 mpg or more.   But using this latest 8-cylinder mated to ZF&amp;#039;s exemplary 8-speed automatic confers more onto the Continental than fuel efficiency; it givers the car a litheness missing in W-12-engined models. Combine that with the design changes and finally Bentley has produced a Continental that I&amp;#039;d like to see in my garage.   More details on U.S. specifications and pricing will be given at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show but, here in the UK, its starting price is about 10 percent less than the W-12.         "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-shows/detroit-auto-show/news/a17864/2012-bentley-continental-gt-v8/>