When you own your first car there is an overwhelming urge to modify it. Restless nights dreaming of making your 1.0 litre Ford Fiesta the meanest and leanest vehicle ever to grace the roads are inevitable. This always leads to spending several times the cars value on modifications. Bad boy alloys, body kits, de-locking and the removal of all badges which identify the car are mandatory for the teenage petrol-head.
As we grow older we realise there is a better way to go about the business of inflating our road going ego. Keep the badges and the bodywork, and instead modify the engine so it’s more suited to a warship than your rusty chariot.
You couldn’t call the Bentley Continental GT underpowered. Its standard 6 litre, 560bhp, 12 cylinder engine produces 650Nm of torque - flinging you to 60mph in 4.7 seconds. This is all well and good until you come upon against another car of the GTs ilk – then you’re reduced to your boyhood shame of being last away from the lights.
Luckily there is a company who agrees with the concept of understated improvements, and they go by the name of Motorentechnik Mayer or MTM. They have taken the Continental GT and rather than try and improve on its striking appearance they have decided to spend their time tinkering under the bonnet.
MTM offer a couple of different upgrade packages for the GT, the most powerful of which raises the bar considerably. A conversion of the engine and remapping of the electronics puts 650bhp under your right foot. 0-60mph time is reduced 4.5 seconds helped along by an additional 145Nm of torque. When you consider the GT weighs in around the same of an adolescent elephant the numbers start to make a bit of sense.
The MTM GT is also the fastest Bentley ever made. It was officially clocked by serious looking engineers at 331kmh / 205.7mph.
There are a few external options available for the Bentley. The one that you may choose above the others is the electronic air suspension, MTM tailor this to each individual ensuring the perfect ride. The car can then be electronically lowered and raised which is more than useful if your house is surrounded by speed humps.
The cost of these modifications was never going to be cheap but make sure you are sitting down when you browse the MTM price list. The engine modification alone will set you back 10,500 Euros. Add in another 7,500 Euro for the up-rated braking system and you could have bought a perfectly acceptable family car instead.
For the serious Bentley driver, MTM have the best offering of any tuning company on the market. If you wanted a perfectly acceptable family car you would have bought a Honda, or dare I say it, a Volvo. 25,000 Euro is a small price to pay for being first away from the lights and for that reason alone MTM can look forward to my future business.
