Bentley back to coachbuilding future

Bentley is looking to bespoke models and 21st coachbuilding to power its growth into the new decade.

With production at the Volkswagen Group company's facility at Crewe in England maxed out at around 10,000 units and unabating demand for its $400K-plus luxury saloons and coupes, the company is looking to producing more bespoke products to grow its profits.

In an exclusive interview with the Carsales Network, Bentley board member, Stuart McCullough said interest in a return to bespoke vehicles was burgeoning among the company's rich and super-rich customers.

"Our customer's spending power is very, very significant and what tends to drive their spending is the ideas you put in front of them -- the individuality of their own choices."

"So far in relaunching the Bentley business we've focussed on a reasonable degree of standardization -- you can choose what ever paint or colour of leather you want in your Continental GT but outside those parameters it [the choice of options] has tended to be quite 'normal'..."

"In the future I think you'll see us move more in the direction of bespoke," he revealed.

Bentley already includes the Mulliner coachbuilding business within its corporate ranks. The division largely concentrates its efforts on customizing Arnage range vehicles. Even though McCullough says the business is a "great opportunity," the change to more bespoke products is a systemic change to the overall Bentley business.

"There is a genuine resurgence in coachbuilding. You see that in all the [customizing] companies that are there or have come to the market recently," McCullough opined.

"We know the number of people who take our cars to the likes of Monseuri and so on. There is a real market for individuality.

"We'll never get back to the days where we will sell you an engine and the chassis, but we are moving in the direction [of bespoke coachbuilding]."

McCullough offered the Brooklands (more here) as a case in point. The brainchild of Bentley boss Franz Pfaegen, the Azure-based $550,000 coupe has already doubled initial sales projections since it was unveiled at Geneva show in March. By the time production of the car commences in early 2008, McCullough says all 550 will be pre sold.

In adding more customization options for Continental customers, McCullough says: "There's more of an opportunity for us to go more in the direct of leading style than we do at the moment.

"What happens a lot is customers come to the factory to choose the fabric or the leather or the paint but there are things we can do that might help point to new directions.

"We've had lots of discussion internally about concept cars but we don't want to produce anything we can't sell to a customer. If you start to see [coach-built] concept cars coming from us it will always be from the position of 'We can make this'... 'We can sell this to you.'"

McCullough revealed Bentley will employ advanced rapid prototyping and production techniques to give it more product flexibility -- essentially combining 21st century technology and the traditional art of coachbuilding.

One such technology is Laser Metal Sintering. Used by F1 teams to produce small run hard parts, Bentley is using this technology as a 'proof of concept' in the Brooklands' production run.

"Paradoxically one of the most advanced technological metalworking methods is Laser Metal Sintering. We've employed it on Brooklands for the end stop on the seat runners," McCullough said.

"But if you take LMS and rapid prototyping and you move it into metals, you can start to reduce the tooling costs for one-offs or small runs to really acceptable figures. Using traditional technique you wouldn't have a prayer trying to make it economic."

In addition to LMS, McCullough says Bentley is engaged in advanced projects in composite technologies that will directly affect the company's ability to produce short-run special edition vehicles.

Though McCullough would not reveal the extent of the projects, he would not, for instance, rule out the potential of short-run Bentleys featuring composite panels in the future.

McCullough also revealed that in addition to more short-run vehicles, Bentley may look beyond the automotive sphere to extend its brand -- rather than grow its business by entering new vehicle segments like SUVs.

He revealed the company is currently engaged in engineering projects with aerospace industry partners, for example. The exec declined to elaborate, however.

The company is looking to "grow its business without growing its business" McCullough jokes.

"Fundamentally the Continental and Arnage will be the two platforms we operate from...

"We're at capacity at Crewe... If we were to increase our overall volume we'd have to change the way we make cars at Crewe, we'd certainly have to change the shift system. To put in a new line for something like an SUV is outside of our scope of thought at the moment."

"And besides that there is so much we can do with the product we already have..."

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