Bentley pages

BENTLEY HISTORY
Bentley R-Type Continental
Rolls-Royce and Bentley car production
moved to Crewe in 1946. The site in Pyms
Lane was built in 1938 to produce Rolls-
Royce Merlin engines for military aircraft
and played an important part in equipping
Allied forces in World War II. The first postwar
Bentley, the MkVI, was the first to offer
a standard steel body supplied complete
from the factory; all pre-war Bentleys had
been sold in rolling chassis form and bodied
by independent coachbuilders. The most
significant of the early Bentleys to be built at
Crewe was the R-Type Continental in 1952.
At the time, its top speed of 120mph made
it the world’s fastest four-seat production car.
Its elegant, flowing, two-door body was the
inspiration for the first new model produced
under Volkswagen’s ownership.
The first Bentley with unitary construction
(body and chassis as one piece) was the
T-series of 1965, sister model of the
Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. At the time,
Bentley lived in the shadow of Rolls-Royce;
T-series sales amounted to less than 10 per
cent of the Shadow’s.
Bentley flowered once again as a sporting
marque with the introduction of the 140mph
Mulsanne Turbo in 1982. The stalwart
6.75 litre V8 engine, which had been introduced
in 1959, was boosted to 300 horsepower by
fitting a turbocharger. The name referred
to Bentley’s former glories; Mulsanne is the
village near Le Mans at the end of the circuit’s
5.5km Hunaudières straight.
Bentley Mark VI
9