2010 Bentley Continental Supersports

The 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports is to ultra-luxury performance cars what Shaquille O'Neal was to the NBA before he stopped taking himself seriously — big on the outside, small on the inside and overwhelming in just about any way that can be measured. Also, like Shaq, the Bentley becomes a lot more likable once one realizes it shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Anyone who witnessed Shaq Vs, the ABC reality show last summer in which the NBA superstar challenged other professional athletes in their respective disciplines, knows that Shaq is well beyond taking himself seriously these days. He's funny, amiable and even self-deprecating before and after having his ass handed to him by various experts in various sports. The 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports is much the same.

Bentley's Fastest Convertible Sportscar

Having launched its Continental Supersports model last year, Bentley has followed this up with the introduction of an open-topped version. The Continental Supersports Convertible is the company's fastest drop-top yet, with a 0-62mph time of 4.2 seconds, a 0-100mph time of 9.6 seconds and a top speed of 202mph thanks to its 621bhp twin-turbocharged six-litre engine.

To cope with all this power, the Supersports has uprated suspension, carbon-ceramic brakes and Pirelli Ultra High Performance tyres. Larger air intakes and extended rear wheelarches are there for technical reasons, though they also give visual clues to the car's capability.

The engine, incidentally, is able to run on petrol, or E85 bioethanol, or a mixture of the two. Bentley aims to make all its cars - not just the Continental - able to run on biofuel by 2012.

Bentley launches 202mph supercar

Bentely has revealed another new model - it's fastest, greenest convertible ever.

The Continental Supersports Convertible will have a top speed of 202mph and be able to reach 60mp in just 3.9 seconds. It is sure to get pulses racing among Bentley's loyal army of footballer clients, who include England stars David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Joleon Lescott.

Bentley Continental GTC SuperSports

The Continental SuperSports sits at the top of Bentley’s range, as the halo performance variant of the Phaeton-based Continental range. It’s a bit out of place in my mind, to be honest: carbon fibre this and that, parcel shelf instead of a back seat, E85 flex-fuel capability, a horse-ton of horsepower, Darth Vader-on-meth styling, and a top speed that clears 200mph by a comfortable margin are not things one associates with an “old money” traditional British luxury brand. Still, it’s awesome in an “I don’t quite understand this” sort of way – there’s no obvious reason for it’s existence, but aren’t you glad it exists in the first place?

Well if you’re a fan of the Continental SuperSports, by the transitive property you should be even more of a fan of Bentley’s newest derivative of the Continental: the GTC SuperSports. It’s exactly what you’d expect: the fire-breathing SuperSports hardware stuck into the suave drop-top GTC body. Now, normally, I’d scoff at a convertible derivative of the highest-performance version of a sports car. It’s a pretty stupid concept. Convertible mean more weight, less torsional rigidity, more slop, and that undefinable “poseur” aspect that comes with intentionally choosing the “look at me!” version of a car. But with the GTC SuperSports, I think it actually makes a bit of sense.

First of all, the SuperSports doesn’t make any sense in the first place. So a flashier drop-top version of the same is more like glorious excess rather than a shallow marketing ploy (even if it is a shallow marketing ploy.) And it’s not like the SuperSports was a light vehicle to begin with – even with all the weight that Bentley hacked out of the Continental, the biofuel-munching SuperSports coupe still tips the scales at 4938 pounds, which isn’t going to go around a corner very quickly no matter how you look at it. And while that’s better than the 5181lbs of a regular Continental GT, it’s still about two and a half tons.

And frankly, this car wasn’t meant to be a corner-carver. What Bentley claims it is, however, is the fastest four-seat convertible in the world. The top speed drops 2mph over the hardtop version, but that’s still 202mph. Obviously, it take a lot of grunt to move 2.5 tons of British beef up past the double century mark, and the GTC SuperSports doesn’t lack in the that department. It shares the same tweaked 6.0L twin-turbo W12 motor as the coupe, which makes 621bhp and 590lb-ft of torque, regardless of whether it’s sucking down dead dinos or bioethanol. The drop-top will rip to 60 in 3.9 seconds and 100 in 9.6, which should be fast enough to ruin your $300 haircut lickety-split.