We’re itching to unleash these cars on some of the few roads with the scale to stretch their legs

What is the ultimate GT car? It’s a pretty straightforward question, but one that’s clearly open to interpretation if the two cars before us are anything to go by.

For Aston Martin, the gran turismo recipe is pure and simple: a big and grunty, front-mid-mounted, naturally aspirated V12 mated to a rather quaint six-speed auto transmission and rear-wheel drive. More sporting than the gentlemanly DB9, yet less tigerish than the V12 Vantage, the $ 277,130 DBS is Aston’s most concerted effort at concealing an abundance of latent performance beneath a classy and convincing cloak of civility. It’s that fine combination of style and just the right amount of substance what makes it a proper gran tourer. Perhaps the ultimate one.

For that reason, the very fact that we’ve put it face-on with the new $ 291,600 Bentley Continental Supersports is testament to our respect for Ulrich Eichhorn and his engineering team. It also betrays our already high expectations for this, the ballsiest Bentley to emerge from Crewe in the company’s illustrious history. Considering the DBS’s depth, the Supersports has the tough job of bettering what is an already great car for the esteemed glory of the supreme gentleman’s supercar.

All-wheel drive, a novel twin-turbocharged W12 engine and a six-speed torque-converter auto ’box are standard Conti fare, but the Supersports builds on the already impressive GT Speed, both in terms of output (now a whopping 621bhp and 590lb ft) and, perhaps more importantly, in the purity of its dynamic focus. It’s a thoroughly comprehensive transformation that makes significant changes to the steering, suspension and transmission, complete with a new rear-biased 40:60 torque split. It can also run on E85 bioethanol, and weighs 110kg less than the GT Speed, although at 2240kg it remains a heavyweight.

There’s no doubt the Supersports is paired against a favourite in the form of the Aston, but as we arrive at every high-performance car’s favourite watering hole – the Super Unleaded pipe at the Eppco station on the Dubai-Hatta road – it appears every bit the hyper-GT. Bulgingly muscular, with menacing black alloys and subtly swollen arches to accommodate a 5cm wider rear track, it looks tighter and meaner than a clenched fist.

By contrast the Aston looks more glitzy, thanks to the rakish, low-slung stance and glossy carbonfibre detailing, and the bright – if slightly pimp-looking – polished rims and bazooka tailpipes.

‘Despite the incongruity of the idea, there’s no question that the Continental Supersports is the real deal’

Irrespective of hue, none of the two protagonsits, it has to be said, is a shrinking violet. This much is proved when we start them both, then pause in collective awe as the whole filling station reverberates to the seismic pulse of 24 cylinders, 12 litres and 1131bhp at fast idle. It’s a cataclysmic show of force, and one we’re all itching to unleash on some of the few roads with the scale to stretch these behemoths’ legs. Today will be a good?day.

We drive out in the middle of a brightening weekday morning. The cars are glowing in the light of the clear sky, while the road surface looks smooth and debris-free. Perhaps the recent torrents of rain washed everything away.

It’s a somewhat inviting scene for a couple of guys, each holding the key to a 12-cylinder super-GT in their hand, and our enthusiasm soon grows as we fire the cars into life, select Drive and gradually ease our way past the commuting traffic, cold air blowing onto hot glass.

By the time we’ve worked our way inland, passing through Lahbab then further onto the coast of the Indian Ocean, the roads become mercifully clear, so we can get cracking.

I decide to introduce the Supersports to these fast, wonderful roads that line the edge of the UAE, first. On the face of it the ‘SS’ is a strange concept. Take a plutocratic, super-luxury GT, dispose of the leather Chesterfield that would normally reside in the back, funk things up with a wide track and fat rims and tweak the chassis so it’ll do skids. It’s a bit like turning a cruise liner into a Class?1 offshore powerboat, yet despite the incongruity of the idea there’s no question the Supersports is the real deal. Heave open a door and you’re greeted by a surprisingly spartan interior. All things are relative, of course, and even this stripped-out Bentley exudes a rare sense of luxury and quality, but still when you look behind the carbonfibre front seats to find an Alcantara-trimmed luggage deck and a fat carbon retaining beam it comes as a bit of a shock.

You sit low, but not so low that your visibility or confidence is compromised. Thankfully the Benters does a good job of shrinking around you. The steering wheel is trimmed in a very fine ‘soft-touch’ leather, which perhaps unflatteringly reminds me of the original Renaultsport Clio 172’s wheel, although I suspect this Bentley version will wear a bit better! The only ergonomic bugbear is the position of the high-set gearshift paddles, which always feel like a stretch to find with your fingers. But that does little to diminish what is a beautiful, comfortable and classy place to be.

The twin-turbo W12 is an engine brimming with cultured menace. It snorts and woofles and booms and blusters in such a way that you feel it as much as hear it. If you dislike shouty supercars then this is the machine for you. That soundtrack is backed up by a deliciously muscular delivery of the kind you immediately want to savour. Instinctively you find yourself measuring throttle inputs to avoid kickdown and maximise the epic surge of all that writhing torque twisting a tall gear into submission.

With 621bhp and 590lb ft to throw its 2.2 tons at the horizon, the Supersports is a heavy hitter in every respect, yet there’s surprising delicacy to the way it steers and stops. The standard Conti GT is a resolute understeerer, while the peppier GT Speed can only summon neutrality at best, but the Supersports is an altogether more enthusiastic machine. The steering initially feels lighter than you’d expect, but you soon appreciate its immediacy and accuracy. With revised rates for the adjustable dampers, new suspension bushes and different anti-roll bars, the SS has plenty of grip and body control?to lean on.

As your confidence builds, you learn to trust the front end, and the immensely impressive carbon-ceramic brakes, which with 420mm front discs are the largest ever fitted to a production car. If you’re diligent about managing the momentum just at the point of turn-in, you can drive the Bentley like a two-ton Mitsubishi Evo, which sounds absurd, but feels brilliant. With that keen front end nailing the nose into the apex, you get the feeling the tail j-u-s-t begins to help it on the way in with a useful nudge of yaw. Better still, it is happy to do this without waking the recalibrated ESP. That’s as far as prudence allows you to push this car on fast sweepers.

If such pointiness comes as a surprise, the Bentley’s awesome ability to punch you out of a corner is a given, for when it comes to traction the Conti is a monster. String all this together on a great, familiar chunk of village mountain road – of the kind that pepper the undulating surroundings of Kalba - and the SS rises to the occasion in a manner you’d never believe a car of such mass could even attempt, let alone carry off with such conviction.

Its pace is stupendous, and the gearshift – now some 50 per cent quicker shifting – is about as incisive as a torque-converter gearbox can get. The car doesn’t steamroller the road into submission either; rather it inhales and exhales with the crests and compressions, softening the blows with a rare lightness of touch. Bentley has thrown down the gauntlet with this car, and in unexpectedly fine style.

Then it’s on to the Aston. There’s something approachable and honest about the DBS. The gracefully upswept ‘swan-wing’ doors provide some welcome theatre (the fiddly ‘key’ less so) and the low-slung seats deliver the sportiest driving position of our duo. The shift paddles are much better placed and grippier than the Supersport’s, but you always feel they should be longer – not just to distinguish it that bit further from the DB9, but also to prevent you pulling thin air mid-bend. With 510bhp, 420lb ft and two-wheel drive, the DBS could be accused of being outgunned. It’s not the word that springs to mind when you flick into second gear and squeeze the throttle into the carpet, but once you’ve stepped up the 111bhp, 170lb ft ladder to the SS, Gaydon’s flagship begins to seem a bit pedestrian – and the Benters becomes unstoppable.

Forget the 545kg difference, next to the DBS that matters only at the low ends of second and third gears. When it gets into its stride, the Bentley accelerates like it’s running away from a tornado.

‘The Bentley’s twin-turbo W12 is an engine brimming with cultured menace. You feel it as much as hear it’

On today’s roads the DBS is somewhat at a disadvantage. The hulking powerhouse that is the Bentley maintains station in its own sweet way, regardless of speed or corner; it’s completely planted, bullying its way through bends. That’s when you realise the Aston is a car that encourages boldness, yet demands enormous respect. That becomes the key to your relationship with it. Take things steady, don’t push your luck and slowly but surely you can begin to trust it, learning how to manage that front end. And once you do that it will take you places the Bentley, intelligently developed and beautifully honed though it is, simply can’t. It puts you on another level of involvement with the DBS, and it’s then you can shadow-box the Bentley corner for corner, without any hesitations in your right foot or the wheel.

As is often the way with twin-tests like this, you could make a compelling argument for either of this duo, so memorable are they in their own unique ways. It would be oh so easy to live with the Bentley. But fabulous though it is, you would choose it in the knowledge that you’re sacrificing that final layer of connection, purity and playfulness you get from a front-engined, rear-drive layout.

What marks the DBS out as an exceptional GT is its ability to capture just enough of the Supersports’ magnificently assured pace and combine it with a healthy pinch of frenzy and pent-up energy. Mellow when you want it to eat kilometres, yet exuberant when you want to get your heart pumping, the DBS earns itself a narrow but unanimous victory.

	Aston	Bentley
Engine	V12	W12, twin-turbo
Location	Front, longitudinal	Front, longitudinal
Displacement	5935cc	5998cc
Max power	510bhp @ 6500rpm	621bhp @ 6000rpm
Max torque	420lb ft @ 5750rpm	590lb ft @ 2000-4500rpm
Transmission	Six-speed automatic gearbox, rear-wheel drive, limited-slip differential, DSC	Six-speed automatic gearbox with paddle-shift, four-wheel drive, ESP
Weight (kerb)	1695kg	2240kg
Power-to-weight	306bhp/ton	282bhp/ton
0-100kph	4.3sec (claimed)	3.9sec (claimed)
Top speed	307kph (claimed)	328kph (claimed)
Basic price	$ 277,130	$ 291,600
Evo Rating	4.5 Stars	4.5 Stars