Together with Rolls-Royce, Bentley embodies the pinnacle of British luxury motoring, and it is no coincidence that the destinies of these two prestigious English marques became entwined and shared the same path for a remarkable 67 years, even though the name Bentley has always been more associated with sportier performance.
The founder of the brand was the prolific and successful engineer and driver Walter Owen Bentley (1888-1971).
He started working in the rail industry in 1905 at the age of sixteen, as an apprentice for the Great Northern Railway Locomotive Works. In 1912 he moved to London and set up business together with his brother Horace to import Doriot, Flandrin & Parant (DFP) motor cars, which he also used to race in competitions such as the Tourist Trophy and to set a number of records at Brooklands.
These motorsports achievements significantly benefited sales, and after the Great War – during which he developed and manufactured two successful aero engines with aluminium pistons for the RAF – Bentley was ready to take the next great step forwards and establish his own constructor business, Bentley Motor Ltd., on 18 January 1919. Bentley had a 3 litre model with a distinctly sporty temperament ready for that year’s London Motor Show, and the first delivery of the car was made in September 1921. Meanwhile, the new plant was completed at Cricklewood for the manufacture of engines and final assembly, while the different components used to build the cars were purchased from external suppliers. Unfortunately, this system led to excessively high production costs, putting the company into financial difficulty. These troubles were only resolved in 1926 when Woolf Barnato bought the controlling interest in the company, leaving W.O. Bentley, however, in the role of general manager.
Barnato’s arrival had an immediately beneficial effect on the health of the company as an industrial concern. When the 3 litre model went out of production in 1928, 1622 examples of the car had been sold, and it had also secured Bentley’s first win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (1924).
That same year, Bentley presented the Speed Six which, with its 6.5 litre engine, was the leading sports car of its day, while September 1929 saw the arrival of the astonishingly fast, mighty 8 Litre.
Bentley chasses were clad by the most renowned coachbuilders of the era: Vanden Plas, Gurney Nutting, H.J. Mulliner, Freestone & Webb, Harrison and Park Ward built saloon, landaulet and Weymann-bodied variants (the latter with leather coachwork), as well as legendary open touring versions.
Barnato’s funding, however, was not enough to keep Bentley out of its next bout of serious financial trouble in 1931, triggered this time by the worldwide recession, which led to the company stopping production and filing for bankruptcy. This was the end of Bentley’s first golden era – which also came to a conclusion with the marque setting the still unbeaten record of four consecutive wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans – namely in 1927, 1928, 1929 (with 4 Bentleys in the top 4 places) and 1930.
Barnato now pulled from the business, forcing Bentley to sign a deal with Napier. Bentley was then bought out by a consortium headed by Rolls-Royce, allowing the latter to take over its greatest rival at a bargain price. The Cricklewood plant was sold and production was transferred to the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby. W. O. Bentley was appointed engineering director of the company – a position he kept up until 1935.
The first Bentley of the Rolls-Royce era was presented in 1933. The mechanical layout of the car differed very little from the contemporary Rolls 20-25, and from then on, Bentleys were essentially sportier versions of Rolls-Royce models. Numerous drivers still wanted to keep Bentley’s racing traditions alive with the new cars, which secured respectable results at the Tourist Trophy and at Le Mans. After the Second World War, production of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys was transferred to Crewe, and the differences between the cars of the two brands became gradually less apparent.
One exception was the 1952 R-Type Continental – this was the fastest four-seater in the world, but also offered its occupants impeccable comfort.
From a styling perspective, the origins of this car could be traced back to the Bentley Cresta limited edition of 1950, designed by Pinin Farina and built in small numbers at Paris. The Continental line continued to be the only model unique to Bentley up until 1966, and was the basis for the 1957 Flying Spur, an aerodynamic four-seater coachbuilt by H. J. Mulliner.
After this, however, Bentleys became practically identical to Rolls-Royce models. The next model exclusive to Bentley would be the Continental coupé introduced in 1991, which was joined in 1996 by the Azure cabriolet designed by Pininfarina.
In terms of production volumes, from the post-war era onwards, Bentley gradually caught up with and eventually overtook Rolls-Royce itself: while Bentleys accounted for only 6.0% of the entire production output of Crewe in 1971 (150 units), this quota grew to 24.0% in 1986 (640 units), 55% in 1991 (952 units), 70% in 1996 (1235 units) and 80% in 2001 (1429 units).
In the summer of 1998, the Bentley brand was bought by the Volkswagen group. In reality, the Wolfsburg giant acquired the entire group, while the Rolls-Royce aviation company, which is independent of the carmaker and owned the Rolls-Royce brand, sold the rights to the Rolls-Royce brand to BMW. An agreement was struck between the parties concerned, stipulating that BMW would not make commercial use of the Rolls-Royce brand before 2003.
The Volkswagen era brought huge investments to both restructure the industrial capabilities of Bentley and strengthen its image. One particularly spectacular initiative was the creation of the State Limousine Bentley, used by Queen Elizabeth II for official occasions since the 2002 Jubilee.
That same year, the first new Bentley under Volkswagen’s tenure was presented – the Continental GT, with a W12 engine and four wheel drive. The arrival of new models quickly brought production up from the 1,000 units of 2003 to 6,500 just the following year, to reach 10,000 in 2007. Bentley has now openly declared its intentions to reach production volumes of 18,000 vehicles by the end of 2018.
