Bentley Bentayga Speed 2025 review – should the Aston Martin DBX need to worry?

It’s a familiar routine: the engine’s ‘sport’ mode is selected, the ESC system is slackened off. Left foot hard on the brake, right foot hard down on the throttle pedal until you feel it reach its stop. Hear the revs rise and stutter against a limiter that’s far lower than the engine’s redline. The engine note settles to a light roar, the exhaust bellows. Don’t leave it too long or you’ll need to start the process all over again, then pull your left leg off the brake and hold on. 

There’s tyre scrabble against the loose service, a flare of revs, a thump from behind as the next gear hits home, and forward propulsion that feels a little out of place with the chrome-finished organ stop ventilation controls poking out of the dash. Although not as out of place as throwing the new Bentley Bentayga Speed down a make-shift rally stage on a 9000-acre Montana ranch does. Still, at least there’s little to hit if it all goes a bit ‘leaving a Cars n’ Coffee meet with more caffeine on board than talent.'

Bentley’s new Bentayga Speed forgoes its predecessor’s W12 engine, and in its place is a reworked 4-litre twin-turbo V8 that’s found in the regular Bentayga models including the S, the sportiest until now. It’s the same V8 found in most high-end VW Group models from Audi’s RS Q8 to Porsche’s Cayenne and Lamborghini’s Urus. For the Speed, Bentley has replaced the pair of turbochargers for larger items and the fuel injection system has been changed for one with a higher-flow rate. The compression ratio has also been lowered from 10.1:1 to 9.7:1 to allow an increase in boost pressure when those bigger turbos spool up. 

Off the line it certainly doesn’t drag its (optional) 23-inch Pirelli P Zero tyres. Peak power might have only risen by 31bhp and torque is 37lb ft down on the outgoing W12’s 664lb ft, but it’s the V8’s eagerness to rev and remapped shift speeds that give the new Speed its four-tenth advantage to 60mph (3.4 v 3.8) over its predecessor. Against the V8 S it’s a different proposition. The Speed’s 641bhp is a sizable uplift from the S’s 542bhp, the additional 66lb ft of torque it generates above the S’s 553lb ft boosting it to over 600lb ft. 

These increases make the Speed sharper in terms of throttle response and mid-range performance, that 627lb ft of torque landing at 2250rpm and rolling out to 4500rpm to deliver a solid, consistent wave of momentum. It’s not as feral as Aston Martin’s DBX707 nor as unhinged as the Lamborghini Urus in terms of get-up-and-clear-off-over-the-horizon ferociousness. And it doesn’t offer the seamless pace a Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid does because Bentley hasn’t been able to stuff any hybrid hardware into the Bentayga’s ten-year-old platform; that’s something you’ll have to wait for. Yet the Speed like so many of its type in the high-performance SUV world never feels you wanting another 100bhp or lb ft. It is more than adequate even though it's hauling 2466kg before you step aboard.

While the loose surface is a whole lot of fun, and in the name of research allows you to test the all-wheel steering and dynamic ESC mode by pitching the Speed’s nose in early and provoking the tail to arc round with the throttle, as if its a Frankenstein's monster of a rally car, it’s not a very relevant test. Although cattle ranchers might find it handy to know it will navigate a ranch track without breaking sweat if their Toyota Tacoma ever packs up.

On the road the Speed is as competent as you expect. Like all in its sector there’s a sense that little this side of a geological moment will unsettle it. The stiffer damper rates have added a tautness to the Bentayga’s ride and body control, in many situations for the better as it the removes the ‘float’ many large SUVs suffer with; that strange paradox of feeling disconnected from what’s happening yet at the same time experiencing a constant flow of energy and movement through the car that’s borderline disorientating. This small increase in the Speed’s ride stiffness feels an acceptable pay off for improved body control. Across coarse tarmac surfaces there’s some very low frequency tremor from the tyres, not dissimilar to running on an all-season tyre, although there isn’t the additional noise to go with it. 

While Comfort and Bentley drive modes remain untouched as far as a customer is most likely concerned, a decade of constant software and hardware development has meant Markus Thiel, Bentley’s Director for R&D and Vehicle Dynamics, and his team has evolved them both to take into account changes elsewhere, such as the availability of carbon-ceramic brakes as an option thus reducing unsprung mass, and the other option of fitting 23-inch wheels and increasing the unsprung mass. As a driver you shouldn’t notice anything other than an unflustered approach to going quickly. Or slowly. And you don’t.

More detail and precision to the electronics systems means the steering’s clearer and more precise, the ability for accurate on-road placement - arguably more important in a car the size and heft of a Bentayga than in a Boxster - very much welcome. So too the measured responses that flow through the car when you wind yourself along a road that twists here and turns there, rather than running arrow straight. Where the four-wheel steering and e-diff bring exuberance off-road, on it they deliver a measured, consistent flow that eliminates the need for you to leave sweaty marks on the hand-stitched leather-wrapped steering wheel when you encourage the V8 to express itself.

There are quicker, more dynamic performance SUVs. There are SUVs that chase opulence even further up the unobtanium scale than a Bentayga that’s been through Bentley’s Mulliner team. And there are SUVs that straddle both of these camps and have a level of off-road ability few of them can dream of matching, too. The new Speed sits within, shining in all three worlds. 

Price and rivals

As yet, Bentley hasn’t confirmed a price for the new Bentayga Speed but expect a premium over the £201,500 Bentayga S – potentially in the region of £20,000. What would that get you in terms of British rivals? Aston Martin’s DBX707 starts at £210,454 and Range Rover’s Sport SV dips under both by over £30,000, with a £171,800 starting price. 

Look to VW Group SUVs – with which the Bentayga shares many of its components, not least the basis of its platform and engine – and desirability varies significantly. 
For £107,600 Porsche will sell you a Cayenne GTS that’s slower against the clock but more dynamic between the straights than the Bentley. For £140,600 you could have a Cayenne E-Hybrid with over 700bhp. Although there are discounts of between £5000 and £11,000 on new examples of both. 

A Lamborghini Urus S will set you back in the region of £220,000 before you even touch the configurator and settle on crocodile skin seat coverings and ostrich feather carpet. Probably.