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Bentley

•  Bentley is a British automobile manufacturer specializing in luxury and racing cars, based in Crewe in Cheshire, England, founded in Cricklewood by Walter Owen Bentley on January 18, 1919. Since 1998, the company has been part of the German Volkswagen group.

• History

• Walter Owen Bentley

• Bentley Motors was founded on 18 January 1919 by Walter Owen Bentley in Cricklewood, a district of north-west London located between the district of Brent and the district of Barnet.

• Bentley would score five victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the 1920s with a car powered by a three-liter engine with aluminum pistons, an overhead camshaft and four valves per cylinder.

• The Great Depression caused financial difficulties and the brand was absorbed by Rolls-Royce in 1931. The most notable model is the Continental, which existed in various forms from 1952 to 1965 and since 1984.

• The Bentley Boys

• Detailed articles: Bentley Boys and Blue Train Race.

• 1929 Blower Bentley

• The Bentley Boys were a group of enthusiastic British motorists including Woolf Barnato, Sir Henry Birkin, known as Tim, steeple chaser George Duller, aviator Glen Kidston, motoring journalist S.C.H. Davis, said Sammy, and Dr. Dudley Benjafield. The Bentley Boys favored Bentley cars. Many were wealthy and often had a military background. They kept the brand'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 lightweight 4½ liter Blower Bentley at Welwyn Garden City and produced five racing specials, starting with the Bentley Blower No.1 which was optimized for the Brooklands Circuit. Birkin released the model before it was fully developed. With the result that it was unreliable.

Bentley

• In March 1930, during the Blue Train races, Woolf Barnato raised the stakes on Rover and his Rover Light Six, having raced and beaten Le Train Bleu for the first time, to better this record in his 6½-litre Bentley Speed Six, betting one hundred pounds sterling. He drove from Cannes to Calais, then by ferry to Dover, and finally London, on public roads, and won.

• Barnato drove his sedan bodied by H. J. Mulliner & Co. in the race against the Blue Train. Two months later, on May 21, 1930, he took delivery of a Speed Six with the simplified rear "Sportsman Coupe" by Gurney Nutting. Both cars were known as the Blue Train Bentleys; the last being regularly taken for the one having beaten the train, even though it was only named in memory of the race3,4. A painting by Terence Cuneo depicts Gurney Nutting in a parallel race with the Blue Train, a scenario which never happened in reality, the two paths being different.

• Recent history

• From 1965, the Bentley and the Rolls-Royce were twin cars, differing only in minimal details. Bentley found itself in a very weak position within the group: in the 1970s, the brand fell to less than 10% of total sales. At the beginning of the 1980s, it adopted a new strategy aimed at further differentiating itself from Rolls-Royce. Drawing on its racing past, Bentley endows its models with more sporty pretensions compared to their “cousins”. Bentleys, for example, have more efficient ground connections and will go so far as to equip themselves with turbochargers. Sales are recovering and gradually returning to parity with Rolls-Royce.

• In 1998, the two luxury brands were bought from Vickers, their owner since 1980, by Volkswagen AG for £430 million, after a last-minute bid against BMW. The surprise is very bitter for the managers of the Bavarian brand, beaten to the post by its great rival. However, BMW has the means to prevent Volkswagen from profiting from its acquisition. Firstly, it has recently supplied components for the British group's new range, including V8 engines for the Bentley Arnage and the V12 for the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph; VAG would not have time to develop the necessary elements if BMW threatened to interrupt its deliveries. Second, the “Rolls-Royce” brand and its logo are not included in the elements acquired by VW; their rights belong to Rolls-Royce plc, the aerospace division, which licensed them to BMW for £40 million. Volkswagen, although owner of all the assets, cannot produce Rolls-Royces, blocking the situation.

• BMW and Volkswagen eventually reached an agreement, whereby Volskwagen continued to assemble Bentleys and Rolls-Royces until the end of 2002, when Rolls-Royce was handed over entirely to BMW. During this period, Volkswagen will develop and install its own engines, notably the W12, in Bentleys.

• Since 2004, the Bentley Continental GT has enabled a very strong recovery in sales, rising from 995 in 2003 to 6,576 in 2004, then to more than 10,000 in 2006 (45% of which were in the United States). In the fall of 2006, the manufacturer presented two new convertibles, the Bentley Azure and the Continental GTC, made respectively on the basis of the Arnage and the Continental GT. Both the Azure and Arnage models retain the 6.75L V8 engine. Both are manufactured at the historic Crewe site. The Bentley Mulsanne, presented in August 2009 at the Peeble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Monterey (California), succeeds the Arnage.

• Bentley in competition

• An EXP Speed 8 at Le Mans in 2001

• Main article: Team Bentley.

• The manufacturer has won six times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, five in the 1920s and one in 2003.

• Bentley won the event in 1924 then consecutively in 1927, 1928, 1929 (first four places) and 1930 (first two places).

• In 2001, Bentley returned to endurance racing at Le Mans with the EXP Speed 8 model which used a V8 equipped with an Audi turbo. She would obtain third place in 2001 and fourth place in 2002, both races being won by Audi. In 2003 Bentley finished on the first two steps of the podium, adding a sixth victory to his record.

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