Bentley Continental GT ‘Monster by Mulliner’ makes some noise at CES 2016

By Stephen Edelstein January 7, 2016

Bentley Continental GT V8 S "Monster by Mulliner" — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Bentley is getting in on the CES 2016 festivities with a customized Continental GT built in partnership with Monster. Called the “Monster by Mulliner,” it’s got a sound system designed with the attention to detail only this famously fastidious British carmaker could sanction.

Bentley’s CES show car features a 3,400-watt Monster audio system, with 16 speakers hand selected by “Head Monster” Noel Lee. Pumped up sound systems are normally something one associates with old Honda Civics and Ford Mustangs driven by people with backward-facing baseball caps, but high-performance sound is fast becoming as much a mark of luxury as leather and wood trim.

To highlight the car’s specialness, Bentley decked out the interior in Monster’s colors of black and red, and added special seats from its Mulliner bespoke division. Taking its name from a coachbuilder, Mulliner handles various car-customization projects for Bentley. There’s also a special compartment that houses 24-karat gold Monster headphones. They’re the perfect accessory for a Bentley, really.

The black-and-red theme carries over to the exterior, which looks suitably monstrous. The main paint color is “Onyx,” with “Hotspur” accents. Bentley also added a custom body kit and radiator-shell bezel, and “stylized” the black hood vents. Red brake calipers and gloss black wheels complete the look.

There are no apparent mechanical changes to this Continental GT V8 S, which uses a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8, rather than the 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 found in other Continental variants. It may be the smaller of the two engines, but the V8 still produces 520 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque, which is sent to all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission.

A stock Continental GT V8 S coupe weighs 5,060 pounds, and the Monster sound system may have added even more to that. But this car still has enough grunt to do 0 to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds, and to reach a top speed of 192 mph. What song would you play while doing that?

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Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

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