Bentley

W O Bentley’s company won the Le Mans endurance race just five years after its 1919 formation, an early marker for a marque that set out to achieve the perfect marriage of luxury and performance. The so-called Bentley Boys embellished its first period of success – through financing as well as racing cars to consecutive Le Mans wins from 1927 to 1930 – before Rolls-Royce bought the company in 1931. For decades, though, Bentleys were merely Rolls clones with a different grille and slightly cheaper price tag. With Bentley’s existence in doubt in the 1980s with sales accounting for just five per cent of its parent company’s sales, it took the 1982 Mulsanne Turbo performance limo and 1991 Continental R coupe to revive the interest of wealthy customers. Volkswagen brought Bentley into its fold in 1998 after having to concede Rolls-Royce ownership to BMW owing to a remarkable oversight regarding naming rights.