Bentley Motors Limited
A HUGE RANGE
Bentley Motors Limited is a British registered company that designs, develops, and manufactures Bentley luxury motorcars which are largely hand-built. It is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG. Now based in Crewe, England, Bentley Motors Limited was founded by W. O. Bentley on 18 January 1919 in Cricklewood, North London.
Bentley cars are via franchised dealers worldwide, and as of November 2012, China was the largest market.
Most Bentley cars are assembled at the Crewe factory, but a small number of Continental Flying Spurs are assembled at the factoryin Dresden, Germany.Bodies for the Continental are produced in Zwickau.
LOGO
The Bentley Boys were a group of British motoring enthusiasts that included Woolf Barnato, Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin, steeple chaser George Duller, aviator Glen Kidston, automotive journalist S.C.H. Davis, and Dr Dudley Benjafield. The Bentley Boys, favored Bentley cars. Many were independently wealthy and often had a military background. They kept the marque's reputation for high performance alive; Bentley was noted for its four consecutive victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1927 to 1930.
In 1929, Tim Birkin developed the 4½ litre, lightweight Blower Bentley at Welwyn Garden City and produced five racing specials, starting with Bentley Blower No.1 which was optimised for the Brooklands racing circuit. Birkin overruled W.O. and put the model on the market before it was fully developed.
After acquiring the business, Volkswagen spent GBP 500 million (about US$845 million) to modernise the Crewe factory and increase production capacity. As of early 2010, there are about 3,500 working at Crewe, compared with about 1,500 in 1998 before being taken over by Volkswagen. It was reported that Volkswagen invested a total of nearly US$2 billion in Bentley and its revival.As a result of upgrading facilities at Crewe the bodywork now arrives fully painted at the Crewe facility for final assembly, with the parts coming from Germany—similarly Rolls-Royce body shells are painted and shipped to the UK for assembly only.
Bentley presented Queen Elizabeth II with an official State Limousine to celebrate her Golden Jubilee. Bentley's two-door convertible, the Bentley Azure, ceased production, and Bentley introduced a second line, Bentley Continental GT, a large luxury coupe powered by a W12 engine built in Crewe
Demand had been so great that the factory at Crewe was unable to meet orders despite an installed capacity of approximately 9,500 vehicles per year; there was a waiting list of over a year for new cars to be delivered. Consequently, part of the production of the new Flying Spur, a four-door version of the Continental GT, was assigned to the Transparent Factory (Germany), where the Volkswagen Phaeton luxury car is also assembled. This arrangement ceased at the end of 2006 after around 1,000 cars, with all car production reverting to the Crewe plant.
A new version of the Bentley Continental was introduced at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show: The Continental Super sports. This new Bentley is a super car combining extreme power with environmentally friendly Flex Fuel technology, capable of using petrol (gasoline) and bio fuel (E85 ethanol).
Bentley sales continued to increase, and in 2005 8,627 were sold worldwide, 3,654 in the United States. In 2007, the 10,000 cars-per-year threshold was broken for the first time with sales of 10,014. For 2007, a record profit of €155 million was also announced. Bentley reported a sale of about 7,600 units in 2008. However, its global sales plunged 50 percent to 4,616 vehicles in 2009 (with the U.S. deliveries dropped 49% to 1,433 vehicles) and it suffered an operating loss of €194 million, compared with an operating profit of €10 million in 2008. As a result of the slump in sales, production at Crewe was shut down during March and April 2009.Though vehicle sales increased by 11% to 5,117 in 2010, operating loss grew by 26% to €245 million. In Autumn 2010, workers at Crewe staged a series of protests over proposal of compulsory work on Fridays and mandatory overtime during the week
Vehicle sales in 2011 rose 37% to 7,003 vehicles, with the new Continental GT accounting for over one-third of total sales. The current workforce is about 4,000 people.
The business earned a profit in 2011 after two years of losses as a result of the following sales results.
A Bentley Continental GT3 entered by the M-Sport factory team won the Silver stone round of the 2014 Blancpain Endurance Series. This was Bentley's first official entry in a British race since the 1930 RAC Tourist Trophy.
Bentley confirmed plans to produce a four-seat convertible model—the Azure, derived from the Arnage Drophead Coupeprototype—at Crewe beginning in 2006. By the autumn of 2005, the convertible version of the successful Continental GT, the Continental GTC, was also presented. These two models were successfully launched.
Official website
Inside the Bentley factory – Jorn Madslien, BBC News
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