Bentley Bentayga 2025 long-term test

The S stands out from its siblings with additional black detailing and a different exhaust that produces “a more sporting soundtrack”.

Those details include unique 22in wheels, S badges on the lower front doors, a larger rear spoiler, gloss black side sills and lower bumpers, darker-tinted lights and black mirror caps.

There’s more stuff like that inside, such as unique seats, stitching and colour accents on the instrument panel and centre console, S badges, new graphics in the instrument panel and illuminated treadplates that denote the new model.

What’s most striking is the rust and dark green colourway. When you’re used to a world of black or cream interiors, even at this level of car, it’s a surprisingly effective contrast, which feels unique yet still classy and practical.

Getting behind the wheel, that Bentley V8 purr on start-up never fails to impress, and two weeks into my time with the car, the novelty hasn’t even begun to wear off.

This 4.0-litre twin-scroll-turbocharged petrol engine is a very familiar one in the Bentley line-up, developing 542bhp and 568lb ft of torque for a 0-62mph time of 4.5sec and a top speed of 180mph. Not too shabby. Its official fuel economy isn’t bad considering, at 22.1mpg.

While I might be mindful of my spending, a typical owner of a £258k car is likely to be less concerned, as they might also be by the CO2 emissions of 294g/km. And there’s always the plug-in hybrid if they are…

Claimed to be the world’s first electric active roll control tech (going back a few years), Bentley Dynamic Ride is a 48V electrical system that can react remarkably quickly to rolling forces when you’re cornering to help stability, comfort and handling.

For the S, the brake-based torque vectoring system has also been recalibrated to make it even more responsive to drive.

Plus, there’s an enhanced Sport mode over the standard Bentayga, which Bentley says gives improved steering feel, better turn-in response and reduced body roll.

Of the lengthy list of fitted options (amounting to £60k, which I suspect is small fry in this world), we have the All-Terrain Specification for variable dynamics including snow, gravel, mud, Sport and more, as well as underfloor protection.

Even if I don’t push this £258k palace on wheels to its absolute limits, the Bentayga does also have a towbar, so watch this space for a mini adventure involving that in the coming months. Lots of impressive driving tech to be excited about, then – and there’s plenty of demand for it.

The S accounts for about a third of Bentayga sales, alongside the two other main models: the standard car and the range-topping Azure. It’s early days, but the S is unquestionably impressive – as you would expect it to be.

I’ve so far mostly been enjoying the driving refinement and cosseting interior comfort in the suburbs and on the motorway, but there are many road trips planned to experience what might make this S special. Lucky me.

Update 2

I was driving on a 40mph dual carriageway not far from my house recently, when I realised I was doing quite a bit more than 40mph just as I approached a speed camera.

I was surprised by my speed, and immediately after that came the sinking feeling of existential dread: a stern call from Bentley, points on my licence and all the shameful regret that follows.

Later that day I was on a 20mph road, which I’m sure most of you will agree is a hard speed to maintain, but I stuck to it.

I was overtaken by a couple of drivers and assumed they were being extra aggressive in the presence of a matt-orange Bentley SUV.

I was slightly perplexed by all of this and thought how true it is that when driving a powerful car, speeds feel lower than they are.

Just the day before, I had spent more time than I would have liked trying to set up the Bentley app and create a personal profile in the car.

I’m hardly a technophile, but it’s safe to say this was not an intuitive experience, and despite receiving an ambiguous email some hours later that ‘A Contact Centre agent has confirmed a VIN using the admin tool’, the app now still says I need to add a VIN…

How do these disparate stories relate? Well, in trying to create my profile, my preferences had somehow switched from mph to kph. Relief: I was doing 37mph in the 40mph zone and just 12mph in the 20mph zone. No wonder I was being overtaken…

In an effort to revert the units of speed back to the UK standard I took a deep dive into the various settings screens on the infotainment system.

Along the way, I came across a few other highlights, including the ability to change the mood lighting. You might already know I’m not the biggest fan of such things, and having purple lighting in an orange car with an orange and dark green interior isn’t really my bag.

All is well, though: I can pick (almost) any colour and its corresponding brightness, plus whether I want it in the footwells or not.

I went for a dark orange to complement the main colour scheme. Despite the app foibles (which I haven’t since tried to resolve), my overall impression of the infotainment is a positive one, and I feel the same about the interior.

This V8 S was created with the specific intent of injecting some driving dynamism over the standard Bentayga, but you can never ignore Bentley’s impressive interiors, which form a key part of the owner experience by reinforcing the sense of super-luxury that buyers in this market are seeking.

Alongside the easy-to-use infotainment, this is an incredibly comfortable, cosseting place to be. It’s all high quality. I’ve always enjoyed the hand-stitched steering wheel – I’ve been lucky enough to see them being created on a visit to Bentley’s Crewe factory a few years ago – and the silver diamond knurling on various touchpoints is something of a Bentley trademark.

For all the praise, there was a stark realisation coming from an Audi A3 to the Bentayga: there’s very little difference in the steering wheel controls, and that doesn’t feel very special in a car that costs five times more than the other.

Inevitably, there are both ample benefits and the odd trip hazard when you’re part of the gargantuan Volkswagen Group.

Update 3

The last Bentley I drove on the continent was a Continental in 2019. The glorious metallic grey V12 GT traversed the Loire Valley, stopping at various chateaux while its driver and passenger ate baguettes, fresh strawberries and pains au chocolat.

There surely can’t be many cars more fitting for such a sojourn than a Continental GT, even though its shortage of space in the back and small boot can be a drawback.

But with its Bentayga SUV sibling, that’s not a problem and the added practicality can pay offon a trip to the continent, as I found out.

This trip to France was as much about the journey as the destination, because since my son was very small, I’ve been excited to take him on LeShuttle.

As he’s grown, so has his love of vehicles and how they work, so going on the ‘car train’, as we’ve fondly named it, has been the source of much excitement.

If you’re a regular reader, you may know that I am also a fan of LeShuttle, at least in part because I find any engineering at vast scale so impressive, whether it be gargantuan cargo ships or going on a train through a tunnel under the sea. And it gets me to France easily, which as a Francophile is a major perk.

With the boot packed to the brim (couldn’t have fitted a quarter of this in a Conti…), we headed to Folkestone.

First stop was the services, at which magazines were bought, Kinder eggs were consumed and, happily, because we had time to kill, there was a children’s play area with train-themed so play and other toys.

Having not done this in a while, I’d not factored in a queue for border control, which was bottlenecked because the French had only a couple of booths open… but before I’d even got that far, a very nice policeman lightly interrogated me about my car.

Safe to say, I was happy I had the correct documentation from Bentley for taking it abroad. Regardless, he checked it wasn’t on any watch lists. I couldn’t help thinking this specification of Bentayga would be the car I’d least likely try to get out the country surreptitiously but then I’m no expert car thief.

On to the train. I’d sensibly booked the oversized carriage and even that was nerve-racking. There’s nowhere that a matt orange Bentayga shrinks into the background, but driving it on to a LeShuttle carriage makes one feel particularly conspicuous.

Wheels positioned carefully between the carriage’s two ‘kerbs’, we parked up and, in true Bentley style (ahem), we sat on the edge of the walkway and had our packed lunch of crackers and cheese, Hula Hoops, apple and yoghurt.

In a recent report, I wrote about the car unexpectedly changing its unit of speed measurement. It wasn’t welcome then, but now that episode proved useful because it meant I was able to quickly find the correct screen menu to change the car from mph to kph while under the Channel.

I also went to the ‘Lighting’ screen to adjust the headlights for driving on the right, which ensured we met France’s legal requirements. Off the train without a hitch – an experience, I suspect, I’ll never tire of – we headed towards Le Crotoy, a sleepy French town about 1hr 15min away.

An empty, perfectly surfaced motorway and some empty, perfectly surfaced A- and B-roads took us to our destination and the Bentayga soaked them up effortlessly.

I’ve been testing its various Drive modes over the past couple of months and did the same on French roads, but Comfort remains my preferred daily option.

If I’d felt conspicuous in the Bentley on LeShuttle, that was nothing compared with driving through the deserted French conurbation of Le Crotoy.

As we approached our little cottage, I wondered if this 2m-wide Bentley would fit through the quaint gate posts, but happily it did so easily.

The simple life of throwing stones on the beach and boulangerie visits didn’t ask much of the Bentayga’s services, but when we drove to town, it just about managed to fit into a parking space (a universal problem for this car) and we smiled at everyone who seemed curious at the sight of a seemingly rare British person in a rare British car.

The drive home was just as enjoyable and undemanding as the outbound journey. In the queue for LeShuttle, we were sandwiched between multiple VW camper vans all bound for the bigger carriage, but we weren’t the only eye-catching car as there was a Lotus club gathering in the lane adjacent, with whom we made friends.

Safe to say, we’ll be back on the car train soon enough. Sadly, it won’t be in the Bentley, but what a way to do your first LeShuttle trip.

Update 4

This Bentayga V8 S exists because customers demanded even more dynamic performance from their SUV.

The S receives active anti-roll control and an enhanced Sports chassis mode, including a 15% increase in damping rates to stiffen the chassis.

There’s also a different sports exhaust to give “a more sporting soundtrack” and some visual details such as unique 22in wheels and plenty of black detailing.

I’ll admit I have mostly enjoyed driving our Bentayga long-termer in Comfort mode. But feeling like I hadn’t been staying true to this car’s ethos, I found a spare weekend to see its other side.

The outing took me to Oxfordshire to visit a friend, but I went a long way round, where there was an abundance of empty windy rural roads, which definitely deserved more than Comfort mode.

A quick twizzle of the drive modes to Sport and you feel the steering become a little more alert, the exhaust pop louder and a subtle dial-up of firmness.

And gosh, I’ve not used paddle shifters in a while and had forgotten how fun they are in a car with this type of ability.

It doesn’t shake off its 2.4 tonnes – much as it tries – so between the cost and the size, I would feel more comfortable in a Volkswagen Golf R or ‘boggo’ Porsche 911, but there’s still a lot of poise, capability and glee to be had with a car like this.

I wanted to stretch its legs only so much, given the dimensions of rural roads and the dimensions of the Bentayga, but I found it easy to chuck around the pretty back roads thanks to that standard anti-roll tech and it always felt controlled and well planted when cornering.

I found myself smiling at the simple joy of it – and that’s really what we’re all after, right? A fun car to drive on a sunny afternoon on quiet country roads.

It’s an expensive way to do it, but if this is your level of the market and an SUV is your preference, I understand exactly why this car exists.

Final report

”I’m a long way from a Bentley,” joked a guest recently on Radio 2 in a conversation with Sara Cox on his mode of transport to the studio.

That quip sums up quite neatly Bentley’s positioning: the pinnacle – and a conspicuous badge – of success in a capitalist world.

As I mused in the introduction to this special long-termer, our Bentayga shows the impressive breadth of what Bentley has become in the modern age.

If you’re a wealthy sexagenarian, you can choose an understated metallic grey Continental GT to enjoy the fruits of your life’s hard work, but if you’re a super-a uent thirtysomething – and there are many globally – you can specify something slightly more standout, such as this model, complete with a £25k Mulliner paint option.

Having run this Bentayga for a few months, I can confirm that the special feeling of driving a car from the upper echelons of automotive desirability is slow to wear off – although I’m mindful the ‘average’ owner of one of these will have multiple high-end cars.

That would take the shine off a bit, I guess, but I’d wager it would be hard to shake entirely the sense of opulence and singularity in a car like this.

As I’ve documented regularly through previous reports, the only real downside to this car is other people’s reactions to it.

Quite a lot of hostility and bad road manners get directed the Bentley’s way, but there have been a few friendly encounters too. The idea of running a Bentayga as a daily driver might be laughable to some, but it will nonetheless be used on those terms by many, and actually I quickly adjusted to it being used in that way by me.

Parallel parking on my street was tricky given the car’s width and low-profile tyres, but I’m pretty well versed in the art, and it was never too much of a bind – although I’ll admit that a few days in a Renault 5 was a refreshing break on this front.

And then there’s driving the Bentayga in the suburbs. Happily, while it clearly is a significant chunk of metal, I found it less cumbersome than I expected a 5.1m-long, 2.2m-wide £258k SUV would be.

I’m always careful in every car I drive, needless to say, but never more so than in the Bentley, and yet in all my travels there were only a couple of width restrictors that really made me jittery.

Those and the Eurotunnel, of course, although going for the bigger carriage upgrade made all the difference. If the stature of the car is slightly unsettling, the opposite can be said of the feeling you get when sliding into the driver’s seat of the Bentley, which is comforting and reassuring every time.

I don’t think I’d have ever specified a dark green and tan interior, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed its understated yet distinct ambience.

The in-car tech is also intuitive and easy to get along with. There’s a neatly arranged mix of buttons and knobs for key actions, along with a user-friendly touchscreen, and this mix of analogue and digital feels optimum.

Some of those super-affluent thirty-somethings might say Bentley has been behind the tech curve by retaining so many of those physical controls, but given that many mainstream brands are now reintroducing them after migrating key functions to the touchscreen, it appears the Crewe maker might have been right all along.

I have mentioned before that I recognised the Bentayga’s steering wheel switchgear from my previous long-termer, the Audi A3.

Clocking those shared components was a jarring reminder of the realities of modern-day car making, but a fleeting one all the same and the only hint I was given in our time together of Bentley’s German parentage.

One too many, some might argue, but no one’s going to mistake this lavishly made car for a glorified Volkswagen Touareg.

The Bentley is as enjoyable to drive as it is to sit in. Yes, it’s a 2416kg SUV, so it’s never going to have the dynamics of a Continental, but as you would hope, the Bentayga, particularly in this S form, reveals its poise and vigour when you want it to, as well as having a plush ride.

Sensible me opted mostly for Comfort mode, but when I had the chance to stretch its legs and flick the shift paddles in Sport on an open country road, I enjoyed every second.

Such is the pace of development that as we say farewell to the S, so too does Bentley. The new Bentayga Speed is essentially a replacement for – and upgrade to – the S, using the brand’s well-known performance badge.

The new model has the same V8, but uprated to 641bhp for 0-62mph in 3.6sec, with a more focused chassis set-up. Based on our time in the S, the Speed will inevitably be the latest in-demand model in Bentley’s exclusive stable.