Who Owns Bentley And Where Are Its Cars Built?
Bentley sits in the upper echelon of the luxury car market. In its long and illustrious history, the best Bentley cars have come to represent the ultimate in elegant motoring. The high-end marque was originally founded in Cricklewood, London in July 1919 by English engineer Walter Owen Bentley (often shortened to W.O. Bentley). However, despite dominating races and exhilarating the public with its advanced engineering and high-class speedsters, Bentley operated at a loss for years, prompting W.O. to sell the company to Bentley racer Woolf Barnato in 1926. Even with Barnato's involvement, Bentley didn't achieve much financial success, however, and only managed to turn a profit in 1929.
By July 1931, things took a turn for the worse at the company, with the Great Depression and mismanagement forcing an already embattled Bentley into bankruptcy. And so, in November 1931, Bentley was acquired for £125,275 by rival Rolls-Royce, with help from the British Central Equitable Trust, which completed the Bentley acquisition on its behalf. Rolls-Royce retained control of Bentley up until 1980 when Rolls-Royce Motor Cars was itself taken over by British defense contractor Vickers PLC in a 68.4 million deal. The company had split in 1971 into Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and Rolls-Royce PLC, which was then tasked with making aircraft engines.
Fast-forward to 1998, and Volkswagen acquired Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd from Vickers for $690 million, although it later couldn't secure the Rolls-Royce naming rights due to an existing agreement that required Vickers to surrender them to the aerospace arm (Rolls-Royce PLC) if it were ever to sell Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd to a foreign company. As a result, Volkswagen was left with only the factory and Bentley brand, which it continues to own today. Bentley's operations have since been merged into Audi starting in 2022.
Where does Bentley manufacture its cars?
Bentley currently builds its cars at the Pyms Lane factory in Crewe, England (named for its street address). The facility was built in 1938 primarily for the production of Merlin aero engines, and it was repurposed for car production in 1946, with the Bentley Mark VI becoming the first model to be made at the plant. After acquiring the company in 1998, Volkswagen invested a further £1 billion to modernize and expand production capacity at the Crewe facility, resulting in a contemporary factory fit enough to produce bespoke masterpieces like the Bentley Bacalar.
With Bentley being a subsidiary of Volkswagen, some VW plants outside of Crewe occasionally lend a hand during car production. Previously, Bentley temporarily built some of its vehicles, including the Flying Spur, at Volkswagen's Dresden factory due to a lack of capacity at the Crewe site. The Zwickau plant has also been producing bodies for Bentley for a while now — something Volkswagen said in a 2020 press release that it expects to continue for years to come. Bentley also previously built bodies for the Bentley Bentayga in Bratislava, Slovakia, before moving production to Saxony, Germany. Once done, the bodies head to Crewe for final assembly.
Where did Bentley build its cars before Crewe?
Bentley's first-ever production efforts were at New Street Mews off Baker Street, where the first prototype of the Bentley 3 Liter, the Experimental No1 (EXP1), was made. That car hit the road for the first time in October 1919 but was later disassembled for parts. Bentley's new factory in Cricklewood made the second prototype, the EXP2. Although it took another two years for the Bentley 3 Liter to start production, it shaped the very ethos that now define Bentleys as powerful and high-class.
Bentley kept the Cricklewood factory running until 1931 when it was acquired by Rolls-Royce. After purchasing the company, Rolls-Royce sold the Cricklewood factory and paused Bentley car production for two years before eventually moving manufacturing activities to its location in Derby, where it continued to make cars up to 1940 when it took a break due to the outbreak of WWII. Once the war was over, Bentley car production resumed at the new factory in Crewe in 1946.
As for founder W.O. Bentley, he continued as the company's managing director until a new board was named. After the Rolls-Royce takeover, W.O. was obligated to work under the new owners, but eventually left in 1935 to join British luxury car brand Lagonda upon the expiration of his contract.