Bentley Continental GT V8 Might Get S-Tronic Transmission

Last week, we reported that Audi and Bentley are co-developing a new V8 engine that will be used by the facelifted incarnation of the Bentley Continental GT, as well as by certain future Audi performance models.

Now, it seems like Bentley is keen on taking the collaboration one step further. The British automotive producer is currently studying the possibility of equipping the future V8 version of the Continental GT with a dual-clutch gearbox borrowed from Audi (Audi calls this “S-Tronic"), as autoweek writes.

Bentley is currently working on a way to integrate the new gearbox into the vehicle’s transmission tunnel. The W12 version of the Continental comes with a six-speed ZF transmission that has a totally different shape as compared to the dual-clutch one, so engineers have to reshape the vehicle’s underbody.

Bentley is aiming to attract a new type of customers to the brand with the release of the V8-powered Continental. Each of the two companies will come with its own version of the V8 engine. Bentley’s one will be tweaked to deliver a hefty level of mid-range torque.

“The V8 will find a new audience for us,” Bentley's head of sales and marketing, Alasdair Stewart, was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source. “There are sports-car enthusiasts out there, particularly in the U.S., who won't buy a sports car unless it's powered by a V8.”

The V8 incarnation of the Continental will hit the market in early 2012 and can be considered one of the automaker’s ways of dealing with the global downturn.