2007 Bentley Continental GTC Test Drive

The World's Best Four-Seat Convertible?

Cars that cost substantially more than the Bentley Continental GTC have neither greater performance nor more-cosseting interiors.

Interior

If you’re looking for the sleek controls of a computerized car, best you buy a BMW or Mercedes-Benz. The Continental GTC’s instrument panel has more in common with a World War II Spitfire fighter plane than it does with a 21st century automobile. This, however, is entirely intentional: Bentley buyers love the look of the nearly 90 classic switches, toggles and heavily knurled knobs and thumbwheels on the console, overhead panel and steering wheel — some of them multifunctional.

You’d think that a chrome-plated piece of metal is exactly that and no more, but the Continental GTC’s interior designers realized that a driver’s fingertips were his or her most sensitive interfaces with the car, and they somehow weighted and shaped every control to feel as though it were cut from a dense alloy billet. The “organ stop” push/pull controls for the air vents, for example — another example of Bentley tradition — move in and out as though they’re sliding through oiled ball bearings.

Front-seat room is ample, but the two rear seats suffer from the space demands of the convertible-top mechanism. Don’t assume the Continental GTC is a four-seat Continental GT with a folding top, for the rear seats are cozily pinched together as the cockpit tub narrows substantially to make room for the top-operating mechanism on each side. Though there’s adequate knee and legroom for rear-seat passengers — two inches more, in fact, than the GT coupe offers — the non-adjustable rear seatbacks are far too vertical for most people to feel comfortable.

Trunk space is big enough, Bentley claims, to swallow two golf bags, and though the lawyers won’t let Bentley say so, the roomy compartment behind the rear seats into which the top folds doubles as a supplementary trunk. Just remember to take your bags out before you retract the top.