Mercedes-Benz C-Class vs Bentley Continental

What's the difference?

The Mercedes-Benz C-Class C200 is such a stylish sedan and I would totally have one. The driving performance, luxurious features and practical size made it a winning combo for my family. The price point is definitely up there but you do get a high-end build for the cash. I've seen bigger boots in other sedans and not being able to fit a third child seat will limit some families, but this still easily earns an 8.5/10 from me.

My son really loved this one. The ambient lighting was the highlight for him and he thought it looked like a "space car" inside. He gave it a 9/10.

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.

The C200 is a sleek and elegant steed.

Initially, you may think this is just a standard Merc showcase. There's the nice big badge on the pronounced nose. Beautiful sleek lines in the body... but it's the attention to detail that make this feel special.

There's a repeated badge motif in the grille and a cute cursive Mercedes logo tucked into the corner of the windscreen. The puddle lights on the doors project the badge at night time and you can often spot a badge etched into the LED lights.

However, it's the interior that's the highlight for me and I feel like it's a big step up from previous models I've been in.

Our model has the grey 'Artico' synthetic leather trim (says grey but it's really white) and a lovely mix of piano black and shiny chrome inserts that are set against soft touchpoints throughout.

The quality of the build oozes through every stitch and join. Don't even get me started on the cool customisable ambient lighting system inside, which makes this feel like you're on the set of Tron and really elevates the interior.

It's quite fun to build one of these in Mercedes' online configurator. You can customise your trims to make it feel like your own and their blue paintwork options are great (I do love a blue car).

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.

I'm not going to lie – there are sedans out there that have an almost limo-like space inside but the C200 isn't one of them.

It's not small by any means and all occupants enjoy the comforts of decent legroom and headroom but it's not cavernous considering the specs (1437mm high/1820mm wide/4751mm long).

The optional panoramic sunroof does cut into the headroom for back seat passengers, which is something to consider if your family is very tall.

The storage is maybe a tad leaner-than-average for a car of this size. The glove box and middle console aren't massive but will suffice.

The cupholders up front can be removed if you need extra storage space for larger items and back seat passengers enjoy retractable cupholders in the armrest.

The way the front doors curve out creates a larger than normal storage bin and drink bottle holder – which help make up the difference. There is a dedicated phone pocket, to tuck it out of the way.

The boot space is 455 litres (VDA), which isn't as large as some others on the market but it was plenty big enough for my family's needs.

There's a handy under-floor storage pocket for smaller items, like the puncture repair kit, because you don't get a spare tyre in this.

When it comes to ease of use, my six-year-old loved not needing my help to get into his seat and he still enjoyed a decent view out of the wide back window.

The amenities in each row are good but not class-defining. Still, creature comforts have be well-thought through.

Front occupants enjoy heated seats and fantastic lumbar and under thigh support. Dual-zone climate control sorts out the temp, and the cool circular air vents that make loud audible 'clicks' when manoeuvred give the interior a jet cockpit vibe.

While I've never had an issue opening or closing a sedan boot, the powered lid was a nice feature to have this week.

The tech throughout is great and intuitive to use. The massive 11.9-inch touchscreen multimedia system is cool and is easy to use once you become acclimatised to Mercedes system.

The customisable digital instrument panel makes the driving experiences feel individualised.

The interior is a chilled out space with gentle scrolling touchpads taking the place of most 'push' buttons and dials.

Think of each surface as being a bit like a touchscreen tablet in how you operate it. I was a little worried the touchpads would be laggy but they're very responsive.

There's only one USB port in the whole car, which limits charging for other passengers but I did enjoy the easy connectivity of the wireless Apple CarPlay.

The electric heated front seats are a nice touch but I was amused by the 'kinetic' function on both. It's what you might call a 'massage' function on another car but here they don't really work. It's best to think of them as a way to do some (very) gentle stretching on a long trip.

The 360-degree camera view is super clear and crisp but the dynamic guidelines (which tilt the camera angle) are a bit too dynamic for my liking and I relied mostly on the bird's eye view to park.

As I've mentioned, the ambient lighting system creates a stellar atmosphere inside. I've often wondered why other car manufacturers haven't jumped on that bandwagon because it's a relatively cheap way of creating wow factor. And it generates massive wow factor in here.

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'.

As always, value becomes a nebulous term once the price of a car surges into the multiple hundreds of thousands. The Bentley Continental GT Speed will set Australian buyers back a whopping $581,900, before on-road costs.

Yes, you really can buy Ferraris and Lamborghinis for that kind of money, but Bentley assures us its buyers have already owned such fearsome machines, grown tired of their compromises and want something that’s just as fast, but 1000 times more comfortable, and easier to drive every day, and everywhere.

So that’s where the value proposition sits, basically. You’re buying a supercar that’s also a kind of Rolls-Royce adjacent luxury cruiser. Two cars for one price. Bargain. Kind of. It also weight 2.5 tonnes, if you’d like to think of it in dollars per kilogram.

Oh, and it’s hand made, too, and genuinely feels like it.

For that money you get an incredibly posh and plush cabin, excellent seats, and everything you touch, and smell, seems expensive and refined.

The newly facelifted, and butt-lifted, Continental also looks simply stunning, from every angle, outside. Particularly in its new 'Tourmaline Green' paint (there are 18 standard colours to choose from, or you can have bespoke paint made for you on request). And 15 standard leather hide colours as well.

It comes with all the apps and connectivity you could wish for, including a Bentley App Studio.

The C200 has a 1.5-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-petrol engine with an integrated starter-generator. 

What's that, you ask? So, glad you did. It's basically an electric battery that also acts as your starter... or alternator.

It smooths out vibrations from the engine and generates some power from braking. Making this a very mild hybrid. Note the 'mild'.

Is it powerful? Surprisingly, yeah. It has a maximum output of 165kW and 300Nm of torque. Combine that with the starter-generator and we have a powerful little engine that can push the C200 from 0-100km in 7.3 seconds, while still feeling like there's power in reserve.

The nine-speed auto transmission is damn smooth and there's no clunky gear changing at any speed. It's got great pick-up, too, for when you need to overtake or zip across traffic.

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.

The official combined cycle fuel figure is 6.9L/100km. Real world testing saw my figure at 7.2L, which was awesome for the heavy driving I did this week on a combo of urban and open-roads.

The light regen braking probably helps this coast comfortably into being a very efficient sedan for its size.

Minimum fuel requirement is 95 RON premium unleaded and you'll need 66 litres of it to fill the tank.

Driving range using the official consumption figure is around 950km, and 915km using our real-world number.

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.

The steering feels solid and concise. The tyres seem like they're glued to the road, making winding roads downright fun to tackle. Oh, and the sharp 11 metre turning circle is wonderful.

The handling makes this your best friend in a car park. The lower ground clearance did elicit some unladylike grunts when I parked on a hill, but otherwise the wide door apertures makes it easy to get in and out of.

The only thing I would note is the low-profile ground clearance. Just be aware of your speed and angle when you handle car park ramps or road bumps in this. They are not your friends.

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.

All the money and you only get four airbags; front and side for driver and passenger. And none in the back, so don't sit there. Bentley also has its own 'Safeguard' suite of technologies including 'Advanced Emergency Braking', 'Swerve Assist' and 'Turn Assist'. 

Other tech includes 'Predictive Adaptive Cruise Assist with Lane Guidance', 'Lane Departure Warning', 'Emergency Assist', 'Remote Park Assist' and '3D Surround View'.

The C200 comes with a five-year/unlimited km warranty, which is standard for the market.

There are multiple servicing options and on the five-year plan, the services average $1090 annually, which is quite expensive.

Servicing intervals are pretty good at every 12 months or a longer than usual 25,000km, whichever comes first.

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.