2019 Bentley Bentayga V-8 first drive review: eight is enough

Marty Padgett

Mar 8, 2018

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Burnt coffee, unlined trousers, post-Achtung Baby U2. Life is rife with mild disappointments.

With four fewer cylinders under its hood than its W-12 cousin, does the V-8 Bentley Bentayga deliver another?

Math with us here for a moment. A W-12 Bentayga with 600 horsepower lashes out at 60-mph runs in 4.0 seconds, hardly restrained by its 5,379-pound curb weight.

A 542-hp Bentayga V-8, a hundred-odd pounds trimmed from the weight over its nose at 5,264 pounds, covers the 60-mph dash in 4.4 seconds.

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Translated into English, that means the Bentayga V-8 is barely slower, not enough to register through mortal sensory inputs. That credit-card-slim performance gap aside, it avoids gas-guzzler taxes, steers more finely, and makes nearly all the W-12’s lavish features available, if not standard.

So, about that possible letdown. “No” about covers it, don’t you think?

2019 Bentley Bentayga V8

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Specs appeal

More color may help you see how well the latest Bentayga fits into the expanding niche of ultra-luxury SUVs, and why the V-8 becomes so very important.

The landscape’s already punctuated by Range Rover and Cayenne stalwarts, where prices vault beyond $200,000 with ease. The really high rollers have hardly begun to roll in: Maybachs and Cullinans and Uruses loom on the horizon.

Bentley wisely chose to lead with the profit-making W-12 Bentayga, stickered at more than $230,000, to grab its piece of the utility waterfront. Now it’s time to flesh out the lineup with the V-8, priced at less than $168,000, ready to elbow aside intenders trying to press their luck in this particular ether.

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The linchpin is that marvelous V-8. It’s been spread liberally across a host of VW Group products, impossible to find flawed in any of them. The twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 plumbs every cubic inch for power as it couples that 542-hp output with 568 pound-feet of torque, delivered from 1,960 rpm, a few hundred revs higher than the W-12’s 664 lb-ft torque pinnacle—a K2 of automotive output, at least until electrics become commonplace.

The V-8 gives up the whuffling off-beat rap of the W-12 for the muffled roar of the twin-turbo V-8. It’s the equivalent of the stripped-down band that goes on tour, not the lavish and costly setup afforded for session recordings.

It gives up a grand total of 7 mph on the top end, too, 180 mph versus the W-12’s 187-mph limit.

2019 Bentley Bentayga V8

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Spirits lifted

Both engines couple to an 8-speed automatic and permanent all-wheel drive. The shifter could be telecommuting, for all the quiet efficiency it throws off, without any Skype-like interruptions or iffy connections. The all-wheel-drive system spins through drive modes that let it drift from a ski chalet’s valets to its snow-slicked figure-eight loops like a Conti GT wearing its winter weight well. We pressed a V-8 Bentayga into lurid powerslides through the final throes of winter; minus the ermine toilet-seat covers, it’s exactly how we thought being rich would feel.

The V-8 extracts some simpler joys from its SUV form factor. The hundred-plus pounds it leaves behind lift the variable-ratio steering’s spirits. From the helm of the slightly undersized wheel, the Bentayga V-8 responds with gentle reassurances whether you’re culling ice chunks from the herd, or avoiding white Sprinters as they careen unwisely into the fast lane of the Autobahn.

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It does leave one critical box unticked, but not grayed out: Bentley charges $5,235 extra for the plush ride and firm responses of its complex height-adjustable suspension, a cassoulet of active roll bars, air springs, and adaptive dampers. It’s gratis on the W-12, highly recommended still on the V-8, where the thousands of dollars go a long way toward providing the supple ride sophistication that badge should command anywhere, anytime.

Add that in, and opt for the carbon-ceramic brakes (your choice of color: otherwise, the iron brakes’ calipers glow red) and that $168,000 sticker floats closer to the $200,000 ceiling that separates W-12 owners from everyone else, not to mention all that extra cash.