Motto: "To build a fast car, a good car, the best in its class.”(W.O. Bentley, Founder)

Introduction

Bentley Motors Limited

Bentley Motors was founded by W.O. Bentley. The first car to bear his name pulled out of New Street Mews, London in 1919. From modest beginnings, the company moved from strength to strength – in a relentless pursuit of both luxury and performance. Were it not for the brand’s five victories at Le Mans in the 1920s, plus a sixth in 2003, this combination could be seen as a contradiction in terms. In which case, it could be said that Bentley continues to create the most acclaimed contradictions on the road today.

Almost a century later, W.O.'s vision continues to guide our beliefs, actions and ambitions. Located in Crewe, England and owned by Volkswagen AG since 1998, Bentley Motors remains the definitive British luxury car company, crafting the world’s most desirable high performance grand tourers. Its principal activity is the design, engineering, manufacture and distribution of luxury automobiles sold under the Bentley marque.

Bentley Motors Limited is the direct successor of Rolls-Royce Motors, which Volkswagen AG purchased in 1998. The purchase included the vehicle designs, model nameplates, production and administrative facilities, the Spirit of Ecstasy and Rolls-Royce grille shape trademarks, but not the rights to the use of the Rolls-Royce name or logo, which are owned by Rolls-Royce Holdings plc and were later licensed to BMW AG.

Bentley vehicles are sold via franchised dealers worldwide, and as of November 2012, China was the largest individual market for Bentley automobiles. Most Bentley cars are assembled at the company's plant in Crewe, with a small number of Continental Flying Spurs assembled at the Transparent Factory in Dresden, Germany. Automobile bodies for the Continental model line are produced in Zwickau, Germany. Bentley cars are largely hand-built.

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Bentley cars won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930 and 2003. The current Bentley production models are the Continental Flying Spur, Continental GT and

Mulsanne. Notable former Bentley production models include the Bentley 4½ Litre, Bentley Speed Six, Bentley Turbo R and Bentley Arnage.

Classic cars have something special that will attract you or not. A world’s first and oldest Bentley car is one of those following that statement. The Bentley pictured above was owned by Steve McQueen, and is being placed on the auction block by Gooding & Co. of Santa Monica, California during the Pebble Beach event in August.

The first production chassis no longer exists, while the second was retained by the factory. Chassis No. 3 was sold with little fanfare to the Welshman Ivor Llewelyn, who, incidentally, was the father of Desmond Llewelyn, the actor who played the long-suffering gadget maker “Q” in numerous James Bond films.

The 1921 3.0 liter Bentley is claimed to be the first Bentley ever to be delivered to a customer. Although Gooding & Co. has set a pre-auction estimate of $ 100,000 to $ 200,000, this classic Bentley is expected to do considerably better, because less storied 3-liter Bentleys might be expected to bring around $ 250,000.

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World's first Bentley sold

Argument

The cars represents my greatest passion and I think this presentation is a good way of introduction in the automotive world. I chose to write about bentley because I believe that they managed to achieve the perfect balance between luxury and performance.

When I say performance I say innovative and efficient engines, lightweight chasiss and the best grip in the class. This is the recipe for the multiple winings from "Le mans" in 1924,1927,1928,1929,1930 and this recipe is also present in modern cars : Mulsanne, Flying Spur and Continental. The british cars made by the Bentley Brothers are a projection of sportivity and quality and they they occupied a place in the garages of wealthy people for over a century.

The luxury from Bentley cars are the result of the Rolls-Royce influence and I believe Bentley proves that cars can be luxurious and a pleasure to drive at the same time.

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Chapter I

Cricklewood

Before World War I in Cricklewood near London, Walter Owen Bentley had been in partnership with his brother Horace Millner Bentley selling French DFP cars, but he had always wanted to design and build his own range of cars bearing his name. It was on a visit to the DFP factory in 1913 that W.O. noticed an aluminium paperweight, and had the inspired idea of using the lightweight metal instead of cast iron to make engine pistons. The first Bentley aluminium pistons went into service in aero engines for the Sopwith Camel during World War I. In August 1919, Bentley Motors Ltd. was registered, and a chassis with dummy engine was exhibited at the London Motor Show in October of that year. An innovative 4 valves per cylinder engine designed by ex–Royal Flying Corps officer Clive Gallop was built and running by December, and orders were taken for deliveries starting in June 1920; however, development took longer than estimated, and the first cars were not ready until September 1921. Their durability earned widespread acclaim. Appearances were made in hill climbs and at Brooklands.

1.1 First major event – 1922 Indianapolis 500

Bentley entered the 1922 Indianapolis 500 mile race as their "first major event", sending one car with works driver Douglas Hawkes and riding mechanic H. S. "Bertie" Browning. In a race dominated by specialized cars with Duesenberg racing chassis, Hawkes completed the full 500 miles in a modified road car, finishing 13th with an average speed of 74.95 mph after starting in 19th position. The team was then rushed back to England to compete in the 1922 RAC Tourist Trophy.

1.2 Barnato becomes chairman

Woolf Barnato acquired his first Bentley (a 3-litre) in 1925, just 12 months before he also acquired the business itself. With this car he won numerous Brooklands races. He was a member of a social set of wealthy British motorists known as the "Bentley Boys" who favoured the cars of W. O. Bentley. Many were independently wealthy, often with a background in military service. Barnato was nicknamed "Babe", in ironic deference to his heavyweight boxer's stature.

The Bentley enterprise was always underfunded, but inspired by the 1924 Le Mans win by John Duff and Frank Clement, Barnato agreed to finance Bentley's business. Barnato had incorporated Baromans Ltd in 1922, which existed as his finance and investment vehicle. Via

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Baromans, Barnato initially invested in excess of £100,000, saving the business and its workforce. A financial reorganisation of the original Bentley company was carried out and all existing creditors paid off for £75,000. Existing shares were devalued from £1 each to just 1 shilling, or 5% or their original value. Barnato held 149,500 of the new shares giving him control of the company and he became chairman. Barnato injected further cash into the business: £35,000 secured by debenture in July 1927; £40,000 in 1928; £25,000 in 1929. With renewed financial input, W. O. Bentley was able to design another generation of cars.

1.3 The Bentley Boys

A group of wealthy British motorists known as the "Bentley Boys"—Woolf Barnato, Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin, steeplechaser George Duller, aviator Glen Kidston, automotive journalist S.C.H. "Sammy" Davis, and Dr Dudley Benjafield among them—kept the marque's reputation for high performance alive. Bentley, located at Cricklewood, north London, was noted for its four consecutive victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1927 to 1930.

In 1929, Birkin had developed the lightweight Blower Bentley, including five racing specials that started with the Brooklands racing designed Bentley Blower No.1.

In March 1930, during the Blue Train Races, Woolf Barnato raised the stakes on Rover and its Rover Light Six, having raced and beaten Le Train Bleu for the first time, to better that record with his 6½-litre Bentley Speed Six on a bet of £100. He drove against the train from Cannes to Calais, then by ferry to Dover, and finally London, travelling on public highways, and won.

Barnato drove his H.J. Mulliner–bodied formal saloon in the race against the Blue Train. Two moths later, on 21 May 1930, he took delivery of a Speed Six with streamlined fastback "Sportsman Coupé" by Gurney Nutting. Both cars became known as the "Blue Train Bentleys"; the latter is regularly mistaken for, or erroneously referred to as being, the car that raced the Blue Train, while in fact Barnato named it in memory of his race.A painting by Terence Cuneo depicts the Gurney Nutting coupé racing along a road parallel to the Blue Train, which scenario never occurred as the road and railway did not follow the same route.

1.4 Cricklewood Models

1921–29 3-litre 1926–30 4½-litre & "Blower Bentley" 1926–30 6½-litre 1928–30 6½-litre Speed Six 1930–31 8-litre 1931 4-litre

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Bentley 8 Litre 4-door sports saloon

The original model was the 3-litre, but as customers put heavier bodies on the chassis, a larger 4½-litre model followed. Perhaps the most iconic model of the period is the 4½-litre "Blower Bentley", with its distinctive supercharger projecting forward from the bottom of the grille. Uncharacteristically fragile for a Bentley it was not the racing workhorse the 6½-litre was, though in 1930 Birkin remarkably finished second in the French Grand Prix at Pau in a stripped-down racing version of the "Blower Bentley", behind Philippe Etancelin in a Bugatti Type 35.

The 4½-litre model later became famous in popular media as the vehicle of choice of James Bond in the original novels, but this has been seen only briefly in the films. John Steed in the television series The Avengers also drove a Bentley.

The new 8-litre was such a success that when Barnato's money seemed to run out in 1931 and Napier was planning to buy Bentley's business, Rolls-Royce purchased Bentley Motors to prevent it competing with their most expensive model, Phantom II.

1.5 Receivership, Sale to Rolls-Royce

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 affected the Bentley business greatly, with the Great Depression reducing demand for its expensive products. In July 1931, two mortgage payments on the firm that were guaranteed by Barnato fell due, and he advised the lenders that he was "unable to meet these debts". On 10 July, on the application of the mortgagee, the court appointed a Receiver to Bentley Motors Limited.

Napier & Son negotiated with Bentley's receiver to buy the company, with the takeover expected to be made final in November 1931. Instead, a competitor named British Central Equitable Trust offered a counter-proposal and with an offer of £125,000 outbid Napier in a sealed bid auction. British Central Equitable Trust later proved to be a front for Rolls-Royce Limited.Not even Bentley himself knew the true identity of the purchaser until the deal was completed.

Barnato received around £42,000 in return for his shares in Bentley Motors, having bought a sizeable stake in Rolls-Royce not long before Bentley Motors was liquidated. By 1934 he was appointed to the board of the new Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd.

This attempted total obliteration of Bentley Motors and its founder was one outcome of a highly personal "vendetta" between the two engineers, Hives and Bentley, two men of quite different natures, begun in 1914 when Bentley was made official liaison between Government and aero engine manufacturers.[citation needed] Bentley's abiding weaknesses were in sometimes poor personal relationships combined with his apparent inability to curb spending on development. The 8-Litre was acknowledged to be the better if more expensive car. Bentley may have been the better engineer. He accepted the position of patron of the Bentley Drivers' Club just before the end of Woolf Barnato's term as its president.

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Chapter II

Rolls-Royce ownership – Derby

Rolls-Royce took over the assets of Bentley Motors (1919) Ltd and formed a new wholly owned company called Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd. Rolls-Royce had acquired the Bentley showrooms in Cork Street, the service station at Kingsbury, the whole establishment at Cricklewood and Bentley himself. This last was disputed by Napier in court without success. The old business had not troubled to register their Bentley trademark. Rolls-Royce took immediate steps to remedy that. The Cricklewood factory was closed during 1932 and sold. Production stopped for two years, before resuming at the Rolls-Royce works in Derby. Unhappy with his role at Rolls-Royce, when his contract expired at the end of April 1935 W. O. Bentley left to join Lagonda.When the new Bentley 3½ litre appeared in 1933, it was a sporting variant of the Rolls-Royce 20/25, which disappointed some traditional customers yet was well received by many others. W. O. Bentley was reported as saying, "Taking all things into consideration, I would rather own this Bentley than any other car produced under that name".

Rolls-Royce's advertisements for the 3 1⁄2 litre called it "the silent sports car", a slogan Rolls-Royce continued to use for Bentley cars until the 1950s.

All Bentleys produced from 1931 to 2004 used inherited or shared Rolls-Royce chassis, and adapted Rolls-Royce engines, and are described by critics as badge-engineered Rolls-Royces.

Car models, Derby1933–37 3½-litre1936–39 4¼-litre1939–41 Mark V1939 Mark V

2.1 Crew

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"The silent sports car"1935 3½-litre Cabriolet

A 60 acre site was acquired for Rolls-Royce by the British government on the western side of Crewe, Cheshire in May 1938 in order to support the company's work for the anticipated war. During the war more than 25,000 "Merlin" aircraft engines were produced at the new factory. After World War II, Rolls-Royce chose to focus its aero-engine production on Derby. Production of motorcars was moved to the ex-wartime shadow factory in Crewe.

Until some time after World War II, most high-end motorcar manufacturers like Bentley and Rolls-Royce did not supply complete cars. They sold rolling chassis, near-complete from the instrument panel forward. Each chassis was delivered to the coachbuilder of the buyer's choice. The biggest specialist car dealerships had coachbuilders build standard designs for them which were held in stock awaiting potential buyers.

To meet post-war demand, particularly UK Government pressure to export and earn overseas currency, Rolls-Royce developed an all steel body using pressings made by Pressed Steel to create a "standard" ready-to-drive complete saloon car. The first steel-bodied model produced was the Bentley Mark VI: these started to emerge from the newly reconfigured Crewe factory early in 1946. Some years later, initially only for export, the Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn was introduced, a standard steel Bentley but with a Rolls-Royce radiator grille for a small extra charge, and this convention continued.Chassis remained available to coachbuilders until the end of production of the Bentley S3, which was replaced for October 1965 by the chassis-less monocoque construction T series.

2.2 Bentley Continental

The Continental fastback coupé was produced principally for the domestic home market, the majority of cars produced (165, including a prototype) being right-hand drive. The chassis was produced at the Crewe factory and shared many components with the standard R type. Other than the R-Type standard steel saloon, R-Type Continentals were delivered as rolling chassis to the coachbuilder of choice. Coachwork for most of these cars was completed by H. J. Mulliner & Co. who mainly built them in fastback coupe form. Other coachwork came from Park Ward (London) who built six, later including a drophead coupe version. Franay (Paris) built five, Graber (Wichtrach, Switzerland) built three, one of them later altered by Köng (Basel, Switzerland), and Pininfarina made one. James Young (London) built in 1954 a Sports Saloon for the owner of James Young's, James Barclay.

The early R Type Continental has essentially the same engine as the standard R Type, but with modified carburation, induction and exhaust manifolds along with higher gear ratios.After July 1954 the car was fitted with an engine, having now a larger bore of 94.62 mm (3.7 in) with a total displacement of 4,887 cc (4.9 L; 298.2 cu in). The compression ratio was raised to 7.25:1.

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Chapter IIIVolkswagen

In October 1997, Vickers announced that it had decided to sell Rolls-Royce Motors. BMW AG seemed to be a logical purchaser because BMW already supplied engines and other components for Bentley and Rolls-Royce branded cars and because of BMW and Vickers joint efforts in building aircraft engines. BMW made a final offer of £340m, but was outbid by Volkswagen AG, which offered £430m. Volkswagen AG acquired the vehicle designs, model nameplates, production and administrative facilities, the Spirit of Ecstasy and Rolls-Royce grille shape trademarks, but not the rights to the use of the Rolls-Royce name or logo, which are owned by Rolls-Royce Holdings plc. In 1998, BMW started supplying components for the new range of Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars—notably V8 engines for the Bentley Arnage and V12 engines for the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph, however, the supply contract allowed BMW to terminate its supply deal with Rolls-Royce with 12 months' notice, which would not be enough time for Volkswagen to re-engineer the cars.

BMW paid Rolls-Royce plc £40m to license the Rolls-Royce name and logo. After negotiations, BMW and Volkswagen AG agreed that, from 1998 to 2002, BMW would continue to supply engines and components and would allow Volkswagen temporary use of the Rolls-Royce name and logo. All BMW engine supply ended in 2003 with the end of Silver Seraph production.

From 1 January 2003 forward, Volkswagen AG would be the sole provider of cars with the "Bentley" marque. BMW established a new legal entity, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited, and built a new administrative headquarters and production facility for Rolls-Royce branded vehicles in Goodwood, West Sussex, England.

3.1 Modern Bentleys

After acquiring the business, Volkswagen spent GBP500 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.

In 2002, Bentley presented Queen Elizabeth II with an official State Limousine to celebrate her Golden Jubilee. In 2003, Bentley's two-door convertible, the Bentley Azure, ceased

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production, and Bentley introduced a second line, Bentley Continental GT, a large luxury coupé 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.

In April 2005, Bentley confirmed plans to produce a four-seat convertible model—the Azure, derived from the Arnage Drophead Coupé prototype—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 in late 2006.

A limited run of a Zagato modified GT was also announced in March 2008, dubbed "GTZ".

A new version of the Bentley Continental was introduced at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show: The Continental Supersports. This new Bentley is a supercar combining extreme power with environmentally friendly FlexFuel technology, capable of using petrol (gasoline) and biofuel (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.[35] 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.

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3.2 Car models, Crewe Volkswagen

1998: Arnage saloon1999: Hunaudieres Concept

2002: State Limousine2003: Continental GT coupé

2005: Continental Flying Spur saloon2006: Azure convertible

2006: Continental GT convertible2007: Continental GT Speed coupé2008: Bentley Brooklands coupé

2008: Bentley Continental Flying Spur (2005) Speed saloon2009: Continental GTC Speed

2009: Azure T2009: Arnage saloon, Final Series

2009: Continental Supersports2009: Bentley Zagato GTZ[44]

2010: Bentley Mulsanne2011: 2nd Generation Continental GT

2013: Bentley Flying Spur2016: Bentley Bentayga

Bibliography

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http://www.netcarshow.com/bentley/2002-state_limousine/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentley http://www.bentleymotors.com/en/world-of-bentley/our-story/history-and-heritage/w-o-

bentley.html http://www.gtspirit.com/2011/06/27/world%E2%80%99s-first-production-bentley-goes-

to-auction-at-pebble-beach-in-august/

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