Bentley Motors has celebrated the 200,000th luxury car built in the company's 100-year-plus history. The Bentayga Hybrid, destined for a Chinese customer, met the oldest surviving Bentley, EXP 2, and a number of long serving colleagues, as it rolled off the production line at the home of Bentley in Crewe this week. This crowns an extraordinary 20-year period in which the success driven by modern day models such as the Continental GT and Bentayga has truly changed the face of Bentley Motors.
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The Bentayga HybriD met the oldest surviving Bentley, EXP 2, and a number of long-serving colleagues, as it rolled off the production line at the home of Bentley in Crewe
The manufacturing milestone is even more remarkable when considered that the 200,000th car is the latest in 155,582 vehicles built at Crewe since 2003 – the breakthrough year the Continental GT was originally launched as the first model of the modern Bentley era. Today, Bentley is building 85 cars per day, the same output in one month two decades ago.
In comparison to Bentley's modern era, in the year of Bentley's first existence, 1919, through to 2002, the company built 44,418 luxury cars – 38,933 of them in Crewe. Among that total were many iconic models of their time, including the Bentley Blower, the R-Type Continental, Mulsanne, Arnage and Azure. Incredibly, records show that 84 per cent of all cars built for the UK market are still on the road today.
A major investment programme at the Crewe factory since 2003 has gone hand-in-hand with the success of the Bentley Continental GT, the definitive luxury Grand Tourer. The 80,000th individual, made-to-order example was built in January this year.
Bentley's Chairman and Chief Executive, Adrian Hallmark, comments, “This production of the 200,000th car is just the latest landmark on the extraordinary journey that Bentley has been travelling since its foundation in 1919. In 2003 the introduction of the Continental GT represented a transformative moment for the brand, and this Bentley alone, has represented 80,000 sales of our total 200,000, and created both a new segment, and a contemporary image foundation for the Bentley business.”
Bentley will move to full electrification – PHEV or BEV only – by 2026, then switch the entire model range to battery electric vehicles by 2030.
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Looking to the future, the ambitious plans Bentley Motors has for car production were outlined in November 2020, with its ground-breaking Beyond100 strategy. The company aims to be end-to-end carbon neutral by 2030, with the Crewe factory climate positive thereafter.
Bentley will move to full electrification – PHEV or BEV only – by 2026, then switch the entire model range to battery electric vehicles by 2030. The industry-leading Beyond100 Strategy will transform every aspect of the business as Bentley accelerates into its second century of luxury car production.
