Promotion: car brand Bentley has unveiled the most powerful road car it has ever produced, updated with several new design elements.

The new Continental GT is the company's first high performance car with a V8 hybrid engine. This milestone is described by Bentley as "a landmark moment" in the brand's 105 year history.

"It is an engineering masterpiece," said Markus Thiel, Bentley’s research and development director for vehicle motion.

The car has been designed to be sleeker, with simpler lines compared to other performance cars. It also appears wider and planted closer to the ground. The company said it set out to create "a completely new face" with "a more modern approach".

The new look has been achieved by a composite of several new elements, most strikingly new headlamps, tail lamps, bumpers and grilles.

The most significant upgrade, however, is under the bonnet, stressed Thiel.

"We wanted to do something no other luxury car manufacturer had achieved so far," said Thiel. "Could a hybrid electric car also offer the thrill of a performance petrol car?"

Thiel said the creation of a new powertrain (the mechanism that propels a vehicle) was a breakthrough in the development of the car and accelerated the process to reaching its goals.

The new powertrain has been pivotal in creating the most powerful car Bentley has ever produced, according to Thiel.

The Continental GT can reach a top speed of 208 miles per hour and be driven for 50 miles on a single charge. It isn’t just the speed or the acceleration that’s most striking about this car, he added.

"We measure speed, power, torque and the range of the battery," he said. "What we can’t quantify is the emotion a car can bring, and I think this is the most incredible aspect of this car."

"If I’m honest, I really didn’t expect the extent of emotion this car could deliver when we started to build a plug-in hybrid," said Thiel.

He cited a critical moment after "several intense months", during the first ever test of the new prototype. It took place on the race track on the island of Anglesey in north Wales.

"Up until that point the team knew they were working on a groundbreaking powertrain but were unsure on how it would perform," said Thiel.

The results surpassed the expectations of the team, he said.

"We were taken aback immediately and thought: 'This is massive!' The balance was so good, the car felt much quicker than we expected. It was an emotional moment."

From that point, Thiel said his team were locked in a tense 30 week period with a series of technical iterations and testing.

"There is always pressure to deliver a car on time, but we were innovating on so many fronts with this as well," he added.

Testing was carried out in different conditions varying from Germany’s autobahn, an iced over lake in northern Sweden and a gruelling safety test in New Zealand during the southern hemisphere’s winter months.

To test the capability of the new hybrid engine, the team drove the GT 28 miles up Mount Evans, the highest mountain in Colorado - an altitude of 4,307 metres.

Reflecting on the history of iconic Bentley GTs and the goals the company sought with its new model, Thiel said: "I'm quite an optimistic guy. Maybe some people would say naive but there is a history at Bentley of doing ambitious things."

"I believe the new GT has also achieved something amazing and I can’t wait to see people experiencing it."

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