A British luxury car maker based in Crewe, Cheshire, known for hand-finished grand tourers and SUVs and a plan to go fully electric.
Bentley Motors designs, engineers and builds luxury cars at its Crewe headquarters in Cheshire. The range includes the Continental GT, the Flying Spur and the Bentayga SUV. Many parts of each car are finished by hand, from leather to wood veneer, and the company calls itself the centre of excellence for wood and leather within the Volkswagen Group.
W.O. Bentley founded the company in 1919, with the aim, in the company's wording, "to build a fast car, a good car, the best in its class". The first home was in Cricklewood, London, and Rolls-Royce bought the company in 1931. Car production moved to the Pyms Lane factory in Crewe in 1946, and Volkswagen Group acquired Bentley in 1998. Today, the company's strategy is called Beyond100, launched in 2020, and it aims for Bentley to be an exclusively electric brand from 2035.
Crewe is a fully integrated site, which means design, engineering, manufacturing, quality, sales and marketing sit together in one place. The site covers about 521,000 square metres, and solar panels can supply up to 65% of its electricity. The company says more than 700 suppliers provide about 18,000 parts, with 82 suppliers within 50 miles of the factory. Bentley also has a Genuine Parts facility at Orion Park, which holds over 60,000 parts for cars built from 1955.
Bentley says about 4,000 people work for the company and the average length of service is 12 years. It says it has been named one of Britain's Top Employers several times. Craft skills are central: a Continental GT takes around 110 hours to build, and wood specialists inspect about 25,000 square metres of raw veneer. Its Mulliner division offers bespoke work such as marquetry and stone veneers. It supports the Cheshire Community Foundation as its charitable partner. These are the company's own statements. The Crewe site holds ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 environmental and energy certifications, and Bentley says it has cut energy use per car by over 60% and landfill waste by 99.1% since 2010.
Behind each car are roles in design, engineering, leather and wood craft, paint, quality, logistics, marketing and sustainability. Bentley's own media site, with its facts and figures, is a good place to see how many types of work come together to build a single car. Each car passes a checklist of 500 to 650 points and is tested on a rolling road, and the company sells in 61 markets through 229 retail partners, so quality control and customer-facing roles are also a big part of the picture.
Website: www.bentleymotors.com
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