Bentley

Bentley Motors was founded in London in 1919 by W.O. Bentley, and made its name at Le Mans in the 1920s. The company was bought by Rolls-Royce in 1931, and from 1946 both marques were built together at the factory in Crewe. That arrangement ended in 1998, when the business was sold and split: Volkswagen Group took the Crewe plant and the Bentley name, while BMW acquired the rights to Rolls-Royce and set up separately.

The combustion range runs to three model lines. The Continental GT is the grand tourer, sold as a coupe and a convertible; the Flying Spur is the saloon built on the same underpinnings; and the Bentayga is the SUV, which has been the brand’s volume model since it arrived in 2015. All three are built around a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, offered with a plug-in hybrid system; the 6.0-litre W12 that had defined the brand’s flagships since 2003 was retired in 2024. Mulliner, the in-house coachbuilding division, handles personalisation and limited runs.

Bentley’s electric plan is called Beyond100+, which since November 2024 targets an all-electric range by 2035. The £2.5 billion (~$3.4 billion) behind it is being spent largely on Crewe, which has been certified carbon neutral since 2019 and is being rebuilt to assemble electric cars. The first of them is the Torcal, an SUV positioned below the Bentayga, revealed on 23 September 2026 with 821 PS or 888 PS and UK prices from £173,300 (~$237,400).