Bentley Bentayga S review: Crewe’s sportiest SUV yet

What flavour of Bentayga is this?

Meet the Bentley Bentayga S. It’s the sportiest Bentayga you can buy, if not the quickest. Those honours rest with the 12-cylinder Speed, but we no longer have the option of that in Britain. So there’s still a cornucopia of bragging rights that come as standard with the £180k, 180mph S.

How’s the spec sheet?

The Bentayga S uses the 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbo engine familiar from a wealth of really quite rapid VW Group stuff – Audi RS6 included – here boasting 542bhp and 568lb ft peaks, good for a 180mph top speed and 0-62mph in 4.5secs. Those with anoraks of the most technical fabric will spot those numbers are no different to a base V8…

So what does S spec actually bring?

Its suspension gets a unique, stiffer tune, the electronic stability control’s sense of humour has improved and there’s an entirely new sports exhaust system. It’s not an Akrapovic system like you could option on the old W12-powered Speed, rather something made in-house.

Is any of this appropriate for a posh SUV?

Bentley certainly thinks so. It assures us a “huge number of customers that enjoy the dynamic performance of their Bentayga on road”, and so it’s sharpened one up to properly take on the Cayenne Turbos, Range Rover SVRs and Lamborghini Uruses of this world.

There’s electronic anti-roll control as standard – keeping the Bentayga flat in corners – while flicking the drive mode dial round to ‘Sport’ from its ‘Bentley’ default stiffens up the damping by 15 per cent, sharpens the steering and loosens the ESC’s shackles a little. The brake-based torque vectoring system has a new tune, too. In short, it’s a Bentley SUV with a handling pack.

How do I spot one?

You’ll see massive 22in wheels of pretty fetching design. There’s a dark tint for the lights – front and back – and much gloss black detailing, most prominently on the mirrors, sills and lamp surrounds. Looks like they’ve nailed it; it’s an assertive-looking thing without even getting close to the drive-by visual assault of an Urus. More Bentley buyers than ever are forgoing chrome for black packs like the one worn by the S, it’s worth adding.

Come on, then: how does it drive?

‘Really bloody well’ is the short answer. The Bentayga is typically a paragon of comfort and refinement in the SUV universe, and it continues to be here, though the caveat is we’ve only tried it on Californian roads. Which are broadly smoother than Bedfordshire roads, for sure. But the S’s first impression is that it’s still a big ol’ Bentley, in the most thoroughly satisfying kinda way.

Then you flick the dial into Sport, the automotive equivalent of playing pool after two and a half pints (rather than stone-cold sober). Confidence levels peak as everything becomes just a little more malleable.

For the first time, the Bentayga can live among the most dynamic performance off-roaders without making excuses. Its dynamic tweaks are all in the details – a little more stiffness here, a touch more alertness there – but the end result is a real entertainer. It never truly shakes off its 2.4 tonnes – there’s no four-wheel-steering or suchlike to artificially shrink it on a winding road – but it nevertheless handles with real swagger.

How so?

The clearer steering and tauter body control are thoroughly welcome. But it’s probably the ESC’s newfound lenience that’s especially appealing, at least on a short blat through the Malibu hills. Pointless? Probably. Inappropriate? Without doubt. But it lends the S such tangible nous in corners – the rear wheels allowed to overdrive a mite to push the car through the corner – and will extract a giggle from only the most deliberately cynical. Turn the whole lot off and this thing would surely oversteer for Cheshire.

Similarly childish – but perhaps a little less our mug of brew – are the grumbles, pops and bangs that emanate from the sports exhaust. They’re fun for five minutes but we’d prefer to slink around attracting just a smidge less attention. Those spending close to 200 big ones on a Bentayga S are entitled to disagree, and quite probably will.

So they’ve sorted the ‘S’ of ‘SUV’. Have they fluffed up the ‘U’?

Not a bit of it. Full judgement on the stiffer ride (atop those giganto-wheels) is reserved for when the Bentayga S lands on bumpier British roads. But otherwise it’s business as usual for, however much guilt we feel admitting it, one of the very best SUVs in the game. You can choose between four-, five- and seven-seat layouts and a wealth of off-road modes come as standard (snow, gravel and sand are just a handful of the surfaces it’s got an algorithm for).

And it’s no less lovely than the rest of the Bentayga range inside. A few of the SUV’s ongoing niggles remain; you can’t have the Continental GT’s rotating-prism media screen, the indicator stalks are pure Audi (where other models get bespoke items) and the dials aren’t as flash as a Flying Spur’s. While the Bentayga had a heavy facelift in 2020, it’s now comfortably Bentley’s oldest car. Blower continuation excepted, we guess. But those who demand their Bentley rides high probably won’t mind that doing so means losing the tiniest sheen of luxury compared to the brand’s saloons and coupes.

Wasn’t Bentley meant to be going all-electric?

By 2030, yes. A Flying Spur hybrid recently launched as the firm’s second plug-in model and the Conti GT will join it by 2024. Two years after that, every brand-new Bentley rolling out of Crewe will have a strain of electrification. The Bentayga S is proudly none of those things – and that might repulse and put you off entirely. But if it doesn’t, you’re looking at perhaps the summit of posh performance SUVs.