Bentley Continental vs Mercedes-Benz Maybach

What's the difference?

Any fears Bentley was heading in the wrong direction by abandoning 12 cylinders for hybridisation (not that it had a lot of choice) should be totally salved by the Continental GT Speed. It is a hugely capable, fabulously luxurious and beautiful to behold grand tourer that deserves extra points for not being an SUV. It might just be the supercar you could drive every day, with no complaints.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

It’s big, it’s bold and totally baller, but that’s kind of the point.

The Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 might not win over many fans with its in-your-face design or its sky-high price tag, but there is definitely an appeal here.

Taking luxury to another level is no easy feat, especially in a Mercedes, but the attention to detail, lavish second row and butter-smooth V8 engine combine to turn the already-good GLS into this exquisite Maybach.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much interesting waffle about the design of any car, ever, but before we get to the wild, and wildlife, justifications for how it looks, just feast your eyes on it. 

Now, not everyone might love it, but it’s hard to imagine a huge, super coupe looking any better than this thing does. It’s no Ferrari, sure, but realistically it doesn’t have to compete with that, because it’s a cruiser as well as a bruiser, a supercar you can be quiet and comfortable in. A Rolls-Royce with rocket engines, even. 

The most obvious change, of course, is that Bentleys have had four headlights, or four eyes if you like, for so long that seeing this new one with two is a major shock, a big shift, but somehow it works.

The proportions, the elegance, the bold 'be big and bold and give no damns what anyone thinks', it’s just impressive, and the interior reflects that same, luxury ethos.

Apparently the new-look Continental is built on three design principles, the first of which is, amusingly, 'Resting Beast'. This is supposed to reflect how the Bentley looks from side on; like a tiger, stalking its prey, or perhaps resting and thinking about its prey. It’s all muscles and strength and power, but also elegance. And who doesn’t imagine tigers walking red carpets in ball gowns?

Principle two is 'Upright Elegance', and here you’re supposed to see, in the car, the strong vertical line one finds in the chest of a thoroughbred horse when it’s standing in particularly powerful way. Great. Love it.

And finally, there is the 'Endless Bonnet', which is a horizontal line that goes from the front of the car - via the bonnet obviously - and all the way to there rear, via cat-like haunches, providing an impression of “speed, even when standing still”.

Those are the bold strokes, but it’s all the little details that make it sing, like the beautiful jewellery-like look of the headlights, which are meant to resemble a tiger’s eyes. So many cats, is it any wonder I started thinking of the Bentley as a very, very flashy Jaguar?

It’s important to note that while it looks very new - and 68 per cent of the Continental’s parts are new - the body panels are carried over, while the front and rear are all new. This is one very effective mid-life facelift, with a heart transplant, then.

If you have wealth, why not flaunt it? I reckon that might be the philosophy of the Maybach designers back at HQ, and it kind of shows!

The styling of the Maybach GLS might be the most controversial thing about it. But honestly, I love it!

The liberal lashings of chrome, the three-pointed star hood ornament, and especially with the optional two-tone paintwork, it’s all just so over the top and in your face that it brings out a smile.

From the front, the Maybach is also distinguished by an imposing grille that gives it serious presence on the road, while the profile is characterised by massive 23-inch multi-spoke wheels – better park well clear of any gutters!

You’ll also notice the Maybach eschews the usual black-plastic cladding around the wheelarches and underbody found on lesser/cheaper SUVs in favour of body-coloured and gloss-black panels.

There is also a little Maybach badge on the D-pillar, which is a nice attention-to-detail touch. From the rear, there’s more chrome, while the dual exhaust outlets hint at the performance on offer. But it’s inside where you really want to be.

Everything in there is just a sea of soft-touch and premium materials, from the dashboard to the seats and even the carpet under your feet.

Though the layout of the interior mirrors the GLS, the extra detailing, like the Maybach-stamped pedals, unique multimedia surround and woodgrain steering wheel, elevates the cabin into something truly special.

And if you opt for the comfort rear seats, well they wouldn’t look out of place on a private jet.

The second-row seats also feature contrast stitching on the headrests, cushions, console and doors for that add a touch of class.

I can see the Maybach GLS might not be to everyone’s tastes, but it certainly stands out from the sea of samey-looking luxury SUVs out there.

So a two-door, '2+2' grand tourer isn’t entirely built with the term 'practicality' in mind and it could be argued the existence of this Bentley Continental, the fourth generation, is something of a surprise, when you consider most people just buy SUVs and Bentley has done quite well with its Bentayga (which will, in future, share the same engine used here).

But for what it is, a two-seat car with occasional seating in the rear for emergencies, or very small children, it feels entirely fit for purpose.

An actual human can sit in the back, but it does feel a bit claustrophobic, and you’d be so jealous of how comfortable the people are in the front.

The 20-way adjustable front pews feel like grand armchairs for grand touring, fabulously comfortable - although you can slide across them a bit when driving on a race track, not a common problem - and plush to the touch.

They now come with a 'Wellness Facility' that brings postural, massage and climate functions to help with fatigue on long journeys - and epic blasts across multiple European countries is clearly what this thing is designed for.

In general, the cabin is just lovely, Bentley claims it does the best car interiors in the world and while Rolls might argue, it’s a pretty fair statement.

The spinning central 12.3-inch display remains the highlight, offering you a modern touchscreen, which can disappear to reveal either three classic analogue dials or a plain piece of dashboard, if you prefer a 'digital detox'.

The Maybach GLS is based on Mercedes’ largest SUV offering to date, which means there is plentiful room for occupants and cargo.

The front row feels positively palatial, with heaps of head-, leg- and shoulder-room for six-foot (183cm) tall adults.

Storage options include generous door pockets with room for large bottles, two cupholders, a smartphone tray that doubles as a wireless charger, and an underarm storage cubby.

But the rear seats are where you want to be, especially with these second-row comfort seats fitted.

It’s rare when there is more room in the rear than the front, but it does makes sense for a car like this, especially when you consider the GLS this car is based on is a three-row vehicle.

The removal of seats six and seven mean there is more room in the second row, especially with the comfort seats fitted, allowing you to recline fairly flat and to get into a comfortable position.

Storage is also plentiful in the second row, with a bespoke centre console in our test car, the aforementioned drinks fridge, backseat storage and a nice door bin.

Open the boot and you will find 520 litres (VDA) of volume, which is plenty for golf clubs and holiday luggage.

However, if you opt for the rear seat refrigerator, the cooler box will eat into boot space.

The best things in life might come free, but the most luxurious things certainly come at a cost.

Wearing a price tag of $378,297, before on-road costs, the Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 is probably out of the reach for most mere mortals, but there’s no denying Mercedes has thrown in a lot for the spend.

And with it positioned nearly $100,000 north of the Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 ($281,800) – with which it shares its platform, engine and transmission – you’d want to get a bit of bang for your buck.

Standard features include keyless entry, push-button start, Nappa leather interior trim, a head-up display, a sliding glass sunroof, power-closing doors, heated and cooled front and rear seats, and interior ambient lighting.

But, as the epitome of Mercedes’ luxury SUVs, the Maybach also scores 23-inch wheels, a heated woodgrain and leather steering wheel, open-pore wood trim and five-zone climate control – one for each passenger!

Handling multimedia duties is Mercedes’ 'MBUX' 12.3-inch touchscreen display, complete with satellite navigation, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto support, digital radio, a premium sound system and wireless smartphone charger. 

Rear seat passengers are also treated to an entertainment system with TV tuner so you can keep up with the Kardashians from the road, as well as a bespoke MBUX tablet with functions for climate, multimedia, satellite navigation input, seat controls, and more.

Sadly, the Samsung-branded tablet glitched out a few times while we were using different functions and required a reset.

No doubt, a software update can fix some connection issues, but it's still something that shouldn’t be happening in a high-dollar, ultra-lux SUV.

Options with the Maybach GLS are surprisingly limited, with buyers able to choose between different exterior colours and interior trims, second-row comfort seats (as fitted on our test car), and a rear champagne chiller box.

Look, nearly $400,000 for an SUV might seem like a lot, but you really are wanting for nothing with the Maybach GLS, and it's comparable in price to other high-end SUVs like the Bentley Bentayga and Range Rover SV Autobiography.

There is some sadness that the world’s biggest producer and promoter of 12-cylinder engines has cut production of them altogether - the epic W12 is no more - and this does feel, on a smaller scale, like Porsche ditching flat-six engines forever.

Previous hybrid efforts from Bentley, including a V6-based one that the company now admits was a bit limp wristed, might cause some concern when you hear that Bentley will, henceforth, make just one engine for all its cars, and that it is a hybrid, albeit one attached to a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8.

But then they point out the version in this Continental GT Speed’s is “the most powerful Bentley engine ever” and that sounds pretty good.

The engine alone makes 441kW and 800Nm, which almost sounds ample, but the addition of the electric E-motor is good for another 140kW and 450Nm, with the aid of a 29.5kWh battery, which somehow adds up to a combined output of 575kW and a nice, round, and impressive 1000Nm of torque.

All that power does have to move 2.5 tonnes of precious metal, which sounds like an ask, but is effortless in practice - hurling the Speed to 100km/h in a properly supercar-like 3.2 seconds on its way to a top speed of 335km/h.

Yes, vitally, it sounds pretty damn impressive when all the power sources are going at once, it even barks and pops on the overrun, a bit like the Porsche Panamera with which it shares the hybrid set-up, only a bit bossier, and perhaps classier.

The point of the hybrid feels like it’s mostly about performance and excitement, but it has a practical side, too, because in EV-only mode this giant Bentley can drive for up to 81km in pure, and slightly inappropriate-feeling, silence (at speeds of up to 140km/h).

Handy if you live in global cities with zero-emission zones, or if you want your neighbours to think you care about the climate.

One brilliant thing about this plug-in hybrid is it’s set up to use the engine to regen the battery, hard, in 'Sport' mode, so the more fun you have, the quicker the battery charges. So much so that, realistically, you might never need to plug it in at all (Bentley recently ran the car at a race track for two weeks and never needed to top it up via cable once).

It is an impressive, sonorous and enjoyable power plant, and you’d expect nothing less from Porsche, although Bentley says it’s done lots of work on the donor engine to make it uniquely more wonderful.

Powering the Mercedes-Maybach is a 4.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V8 – the same engine you will find in many AMG products like the C 63 S and GT coupe.

In this application, the engine is tuned to produce 410kW and 730Nm, which is admittedly less than you get in something like the GLS 63, but the Maybach isn’t designed to be an outright powerhouse.

With drive sent to all four wheels via a nine-speed automatic transmission, the Maybach SUV will accelerate from 0-100km/h in just 4.9 seconds – also helped by a 48-volt mild-hybrid 'EQ Boost' system.

Though not designed for outright grunt, the Maybach GLS’s engine is nicely tuned to deliver smooth power and seemless shifting

The Maybach is more than a match for rivals such as the Aston Martin DBX (405kW/700Nm), Bentley Bentayga (404kW/800Nm) and Range Rover P565 SV Autobiography (416kW/700Nm).

While the top-line figures for performance hybrids like this always sound impressive, it’s hard to believe anyone will ever get near them in the real world, because the temptation to drive a car like this hard and fast, as its makers clearly intended, will mean chewing fuel in a very non-efficient way indeed.

On paper, though, where it matters in terms of being allowed to sell your giant luxury grand tourer in Europe, the Bentley Continental GT Speed produces just 29 grams of CO2 per kilometre. 

Fuel economy is a claimed 10.3 litres per 100km, which is optimistic, but still a lot lower than the equally unlikely 14L/100km figure for the old (12-cylinders and no hybrid) car. As in, neither car would ever achieve the theoretical figure, but at least the new one is clearly a lot better.

Official fuel consumption figures for the Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 are pegged at 12.5 litres per 100km, and it’s recommended to fill up with 98 RON premium unleaded, so be prepared for a big fuel bill.

This is despite the 48-volt mild-hybrid tech that lets the Maybach coast without using fuel in certain conditions, and extends start-stop functionality.

In our brief time in the car, we managed to get 14.8L/100km. Why is the Maybach so thirsty? That’s simple, it’s weight.

All the cool features like Nappa leather interior, woodgrain trim and 23-inch wheels add weight to the overall package, and the Maybach GLS tips the scales at nearly three tonnes. Ouch.

In an ideal world, one would take the Bentley Continental GT Speed for an appropriate drive from the top of Germany to the bottom of Italy or France, but instead we were asked to drive the big beast around a tight and slightly terrifying private members race track outside Tokyo called the Magarigawa Club.

Members here pay US$1 million a year for access to this circuit, carved out of several mountain tops, which features two long and fun straights attached to what feels like a hill climb circuit with a bit of Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew and a touch of Mt Panorama’s undulations.

This track, with its daunting lack of run-off, should have been an intimidating and possibly inappropriate place to try the Continental GT Speed, but it is a credit to the car’s “everyday supercar” personality that it soaked up the pressure, and pace with ease.

On our first lap we were encouraged to drive in EV mode, which was predictably a bit dull, quiet and not-quite boring, because if you went past 75 per cent of throttle, or 140km/h, the engine would kick in and things would instantly get interesting.

It was a good chance to note just how lushly comfortable the cabin and seats are, however, and just how supple the suspension can be.

The Bentley’s “secret weapon”, according to its engineers, is a new twin-valve damper the allows the chassis to behave like a sports car when you want it to - probably about 3.0 per cent of the time for actual owners - and an absolute luxury pleasure palace for cruising around the rest of the time.

The split personality thing really is on offer with this car, as we found out once we engaged the Sport setting.

The Speed’s all-wheel drive, all-wheel steering, torque vectoring and electronic LSD were all on display over the later laps, in which we were allowed to blast past 200km/h and find out just how good the brakes are at pulling up 2.5 tonnes of high-speed luxo-barge.

You do your steering via a lovely wheel with a leather front and Alcantara wheel, and it feels effortless, even in full track attack mode. A bit more feedback might be nice, but I guess Bentley owners have other cars for that kind of thing.

Aside from the rushing, roaring speed, what is most impressive is how little body roll there is from the Continental. It feels planted, poised, happy to change direction and is rarely upset or flustered, despite some squeals of complaints from the tyres. 

Getting too wide on to the ripple strips caused a shudder and a skip sideways now and then, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been so far off the racing line.

Overall, the Continental GT delivers on its name, with Speed, and lots of it, all delivered in a properly swanky environment.

While you might not find many owners of the Maybach GLS in the driver’s seat, it’s nice to know it can hold its own in the driving dynamics department.

Don’t get me wrong, this won’t give the AMG-blessed GLS 63 a run for its money, but the Maybach SUV is far from dull.

And the engine plays a large part in this. Sure, it’s not as savage as some AMG models, but there is still plenty of grunt to come out of corners with enthusiasm.

The tune of the engine is obviously weighted towards smoothness and comfort, but with 410kW/730Nm on tap there is enough there to make things feel urgent.

The nine-speed automatic transmission also has to be called out, as it is calibrated in such a way that the shifts are imperceptible. There’s none of that mechanical jerkiness and clunkiness involved in swapping cogs, and it just makes the Maybach GLS feel that much more luxurious.

The steering, while straying a towards numb, still offers plenty of feedback so you know what’s happening underneath, but it’s the active body control that works to keep this hefty SUV in check in the bends.

The best bit, though, has to be the air suspension, which floats the Maybach GLS over bumps and uneven roads like a cloud.

The front-facing camera can also read the terrain ahead and set-up the suspension for incoming speed bumps and turns, taking comfort up to a whole new level.

All this is to say, yeah, the Maybach might look like a boat, and cost as much as a boat, but it doesn’t actually feel like a boat behind the wheel.

But really, are you buying this car because you want to be the driver? Or are you buying one because you want to be driven?

In the second row, it’s as close as you’ll get to a first-class flight on the road, and the seats are genuinely plush and cosy.

It’s eerily quiet and supremely comfortable in the second row, leaving you free to carry on with important business like drinking your champagne or uploading to the 'gram.

And while I usually suffer from a bout of motion sickness within minutes of looking at a phone in a car, I didn’t feel such ill effects in the Maybach GLS.

Even after about 20 minutes scrolling through Facebook and emails while being driven around, there was no sign of a headache or queasiness, which is all thanks to how well the suspension is tuned and the active anti-roll technology doing its thing.

The Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 has not been tested by ANCAP or Euro NCAP, and therefore doesn’t wear a safety assessment rating.

Despite this, the safety equipment found on the Maybach is comprehensive. As standard, there are nine airbags, a surround-view camera system, autonomous emergency braking (AEB), tyre pressure monitoring, traffic sign recognition, front and rear parking sensors, rear cross-traffic alert, and automatic high beams.

Mercedes’ 'Driving Assistance Package Plus' is also included, bundling adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist and blind-spot monitoring.

The 'Urban Guard' suite also adds an alarm, tow-away protection, parking damage detection, and an interior motion sensor, which can send notifications to your 'Mercedes Me' app.

The Bentley Continental GT Speed comes with a five-year, all-inclusive servicing plan as standard.

That sounds good, but stunningly, Bentley still only offers a three-year manufacturer warranty, albeit one with no mileage limitations. That's way below industry standard these days.

The battery that forms part of the hybrid system is, however, warrantied for eight years, or 160,000km.

Like all new Mercedes models sold in 2021, the Maybach GLS 600 comes with a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty with roadside assist over that period.

This is class-leading in the premium segment, with only Lexus, Genesis and Jaguar able to match the warranty period, while BMW and Audi serve up assurance periods lasting only three years.

Scheduled servicing intervals are every 12 months or 20,000km, whichever occurs first.

While the first three services will cost owners $4000 ($800 for the first, $1200 for the second and $2000 for the third service), buyers can opt to save some money with a pre-paid service plan.

Under the service plan pricing, three years of maintenance will cost $3050, while four- and five-year plans are on offer at $4000 and $4550 respectively.