Bentley is a car marque that is associated with luxury, performance and style. It is a well-known fact that Bentley Motors has been under Volkswagen’s ownership since 1998 and that the British luxury car manufacturer has been using VW engines in its cars for some years now.
Once owned by competitors Rolls Royce, the Bentley car marque is associated with all manner of celebrities, wealthy individuals and the motoring elite. The car firm was originally intended to be sold to BMW (the current owners of Rolls Royce, incidentally), as this proved to be a logical choice as BMW had been supplying Bentley with engines and parts for some years, but they were outbid by the Volkswagen Group.
Today, the parts that end up becoming Bentley cars are all manufactured by Volkswagen in Germany, before being shipped over to the United Kingdom for final assembly at Bentley’s car plant in Crewe, Cheshire. Even the bodywork for the car arrives at the Bentley plant in Crewe fully painted, so all the workers there have to do is simply put the car together!
Economic recovery in the British car industry
It’s no secret that the car industry in the United Kingdom has been somewhat turbulent over recent years, and the demise of British firms such as Metrocab and the Rover Group can be attributed to such volatile trading conditions.
But the good news is that things are looking up for the car industry in Britain, with 11% growth in the industry, as opposed to countries such as France where new car sales have dropped more than 4%. Bentley’s story is also good, with the company announcing record profits in 2013 thanks in part to demand for its cars from the United States.
Bentley engines to be made in Britain
Following on from such prosperous news comes information that the Volkswagen Group will be investing further into British car manufacturing by having its W12 engines (that feature in Bentley cars) manufactured in Crewe rather than in Germany.
In a recent news article, the luxury carmaker’s German owners had announced that, by the end of 2014, all W12 engines will be built in Britain, with some of those engines being used in Audi and Volkswagen models in future models.
Volkswagen has stated that over 100 new jobs will be created in Crewe, with all production of the W12 engines to cease in Germany. According to Wolfgang Schreiber, Bentley’s Chairman and Chief Executive, it’s not going to be a total disaster moving the work away from Germany, as the number of W12 engines produced is comparatively low against the other engines Volkswagen make.
W12 engines are somewhat expensive to produce, but with the plethora of secondhand engine resellers available, an existing Bentley (or Volkswagen, or Audi) owner could save some cash by buying their engines from 247Spares.co.uk, for example!
Still, if you live in the UK and you wanted to buy a brand new W12 engine for your car, it would certainly be cheaper to obtain towards the end of 2014!
