Review: Driving the $360,000 Bentley Continental GT Speed is the closest I'll ever get to heaven on Earth

• The Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible is a grand tourer with a W12 engine and 650 horsepower.
• We drove one for a week. It came to $360,400 after $55,000 in optional features.

Gliding around town in a $360,000 Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible, my husband and I had everything we could've wanted in a car: massaging seats, tasteful chrome accents, a blue interior, a W12 engine, and neck warmers on the backs of our seats. Yet he turned to me and said: "I still don't understand who this is for."

I sighed, because I knew he never would.

The Continental GT is a grand tourer, which is a type of car that mixes performance with varying degrees of luxury for peak long-distance driving. Grand tourers are the yachts of the sports-car world, and their price tags are often deep into the six figures.

Some grand tourers, like the $100,000 Lexus LC500, lean sportier. Others, like the Continental GT Speed, emphasize pillowy, Gatsby-style luxury with lots of power underneath. The choice comes down to what fits a buyer best.

Bentley introduced the Continental GT in 2003, just a few years after the company split from fellow ultra-luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce. Bentley and Rolls have had a complicated relationship over the years, but it all ended when the Volkswagen Group acquired Bentley and BMW took Rolls.

The Continental was the first all-new Bentley created in the modern Volkswagen era, making it a revolutionary car for the brand. It boosted sales and established the new Bentley: no longer a Rolls sibling, but now a head-on Rolls competitor.

The "Speed" model I drove is a faster, more powerful version of the Continental GT. It comes with Bentley's twin-turbocharged W12 engine, meaning its 12 cylinders sit in a big "W" shape instead of the more common "V."

W-shaped engines are rare, notoriously complex, and expensive to maintain over time, but they're a sort of wonder among car buyers — a performance-focused powerplant most people can't have or afford, which is why Volkswagen currently puts them in six-figure Bentleys and seven-figure Bugattis. The Continental GT Speed's W12 makes 650 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque, and Bentley claims it can hit 60 mph in 3.5 seconds despite weighing the same as nearly two Honda Civics.

The Continental GT Speed starts at about $300,000, and mine had $55,275 in optional features. That included a $9,000 Naim audio system, $2,000 in mood lighting, $4,000 in carbon-fiber finishes, $3,700 in contrast stitching, and more. After fees, the car came to $360,400.

Old money meets modern tech

In the two decades since the Continental GT debuted, its looks haven't changed much. Its iconic circular headlights, large mesh grille, bulky figure, wide rear fenders, and smooth exterior lines are all still there, and its styling has gone from "ornate" to "very ornate." These days, its headlights look like glowing crystal glassware, and its intricate diamond stitching glistens in the sun.

The car is a cocoon of luxury, with a cushy interior and a convertible top so thick that when the roof is up, the outside world practically doesn't exist. When you want it to, that roof automatically retracts into a space near the trunk.

The Continental GT has two doors and four seats, but like many grand tourers, the cramped back row is more of a purse shelf than anything. It's also full of dials and switches: Control your massaging seats here and turn on your neck warmers there, all while your seat pulses to match the beat of your music.

My loaner was simple on the outside — white with a black top — but intricate on the inside, from italicized "Speed" logos sprinkled around its interior to clusters of small chrome switches all over the dashboard and center console. The infotainment screen folded into the glossy carbon-fiber dashboard when the car turned off, erasing modern technology and restoring the look of old money so integral to the Bentley or Rolls-Royce ambiance.

The car was also full of diamond patterns — on the doors, seats, cupholders, switches, handles, and speaker mesh, among other places. Its plush blue interior had red piping and diamond stitching all over, the patterns acting as subliminal messages: If I'm surrounded by diamonds, I must be one, too.

The only style choice I couldn't fathom was the piano black, which is a shiny, plasticky accent material common on modern cars of any price point. It looks beautiful in a showroom, but after five minutes of use, it's covered in dust and grease.

No car should have it — not a $30,000 Kia Seltos, and certainly not a $300,000 Continental GT.

Vulgar W12 power wrapped in an elegant shell

Earlier this year, I took the car to Circuit of The Americas, a 3.4-mile Formula One track in Austin with sharp corners, fast straightaways, and slithering esses. The Continental is meant for the road — for touring in luxury, not ripping up a racetrack — but I couldn't stop smiling as I threw it around each corner.

Its tires slid through the turns, leaning into its heavy curb weight and bulky nature next to track-prepped Lamborghinis that glued themselves to the ground. Its crash-detection systems wailed as I stomped the brakes, mostly because I didn't know how to turn them off. Yet the Continental still tried to be agile, and for what it was, it succeeded. It made every corner, braking like the hands of God stopping a bus in its tracks.

The Continental was suave and cool, even if it was a little out of place. That's just its nature.

When I left the track and drove back onto the street, the car floated over bumps and potholes — all while its true nature lurked just below my right foot, ready to launch forward with the kind of effortless power only six figures can buy.

I got stares from drivers and pedestrians alike. A group of kids yelled after me to ask if I was in a Rolls-Royce, but I didn't want to get into the history of all that. I just turned around in a nearby parking lot to let them take a few photos for their friends, because everyone appreciates a good brag now and then.

That was the case anywhere we went in the Continental GT. My husband and I were the center of attention, yet he still couldn't figure it out: How do you choose a car in a segment so full of fluff and flashiness? What specs make a person go for the Continental GT over other grand tourers, like the $360,000 Rolls-Royce Dawn, the $200,000 Aston Martin DB11, or even the $100,000 Lexus LC500?

I told him he was asking the wrong question. When you're shopping for a car in this territory, you can compare features or prices. That can inform which car sticks out most, or why you'd go for a 650-horsepower W12 chariot of a Bentley over something else.

But deep down, you buy a Bentley because you want a Bentley. You buy it because Bentley's branding puts down vibes that you'd like to pick up, and because it makes you think heaven really could be a commodity. You buy a Bentley because of how it makes you feel, not what it makes you think.

If you can't wrap your head around that, you're just not the right audience for it.