Bentley GTC Speed

Price: £153,400
Top speed: 200 mph 0-60mph 4.5 seconds
Consumption: 17.0 mpg
CO2 emissions: 396g/km
Best for: Footballers on their summer break
Also worth considering? Aston Martin DB9 Volante, Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, Mercedes SL600

Timing is everything. The economy is going through its roughest patch for 15 years and the motor industry has been hit harder than almost any other sector. At the same time, all those environmental problems we used to worry about before the slump came along still haven't really gone away.

Enter the Bentley GTC Speed, a new, go-faster version of an extravagantly trimmed open-top car that was already capable of 195mph in standard form. This one can crack the 200 mark but only gets 17 miles to the gallon on official government tests and pumps out a staggering 396 grammes of CO2 per kilometre. It's completely indefensible – except on the grounds that it is utterly wonderful in just about every way.

But Bentley has a better sense of timing than the inauspicious scheduling of the GTC Speed's launch might suggest, and prospects for this latest model are better than you might think. After the company was taken over by Volkswagen in 1998, it identified a yawning gap in the luxury car market between handmade cars and high-end models built by normal production line processes from Mercedes, BMW and Porsche. The result was the Continental range, which shares much of its technology with the most expensive Volkswagens and Audis.

These cars – the GT coupe, the Flying Spur saloon and the GTC convertible – hit that sweet spot in the market a little to the north of £100,000 just as the economy was really motoring, propelling Bentley sales to a heady 10,000 units in 2007. Things have inevitably slipped a bit since then but the GTC Speed still seems likely to be popular; Speed versions of the GT and the Flying Spur have been on sale for some time and have high take-up rates.

What else – besides more speed – does the GTC Speed offer over a standard GTC? Well there's a host of under-the skin-engineering modifications aimed at sharpening the GTC's cornering behaviour without spoiling its excellent ride comfort. It's mostly subtle stuff, with the exception of the improved steering set-up, which represents quite a leap forward in terms of accuracy and feel.

One more interesting fact about the GTC Speed: its 200mph top speed is reached with the roof up but it's also capable of getting to 195mph with its top lowered. Perhaps it's just as well that the stereotypical Bentley owner is no longer a middle-aged, toupéed entertainer but a young, follically fit footballer.