The soap opera which saw two German giants squabbling over the most prestige of British automotive brands has been well documented previously, but here’s a brief recap: Volkswagen swooped in with a last-minute bid to grab Rolls-Royce and Bentley from under the nose of BMW but shortly afterwards discovered that the deal didn’t include the rights to the crucial Rolls-Royce trademarks. These were held by Rolls-Royce the aero-engineering company, which was prepared to license them to BMW as an existing business partner in the aerospace world but not to VW Group, rendering the acquisition all but worthless to the Wolfsburg brand.
Popular opinion suggests a deal was quickly thrashed out in a Bavarian restaurant which then saw the two marques split for the first time since 1931, with BMW taking the Rolls-Royce marque and Volkswagen retaining Bentley and the Crewe premises. In the short term, both Rolls and Bentley-badged cars would be made by Volkswagen until January 2003, when BMW’s new Goodwood plant would start turning out Rolls-Royces.
Naturally, Volkswagen claimed this was the outcome it had wanted all along, Bentley being the brand with the greatest volume potential but industry pundits dismissed this as a desperate face-saving spin from the PR people. Now though, with the benefit of hindsight it seems we may have been too quick to judge, since the Volkswagen era has seen Bentley blossom where rivals like Jaguar have simply withered away.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the harsh reality was that Volkswagen had its work cut out in the first couple of years. Not only did it need to re-engineer the Arnage to avoid the embarrassing spectre of producing a car with a BMW engine, but in the medium term it also needed to develop an all-new Bentley.
The first problem was overcome by the brilliantly simple expedient of resurrecting the old L-Series V8 which – once the front end had been suitably reinforced to bear the extra weight – gave the Arnage the character it had always lacked and a new lease of life.
The second was more of a challenge, but VW did have a secret weapon to hand courtesy of the car which had always been regarded as boss Ferdinand Pïech’s greatest folly: the Phaeton. Powered in its top-end form by the curious W12 engine – essentially two VR6 motors – and riding on air suspension with four-wheel drive transmission, the Phaeton was a technological showcase for VW Group. The scale of Pïech’s ambition for the car was illustrated in the brief for the air conditioning: it was required to maintain a cabin temperature of 22°C at 186mph in 50°C ambient temperature.
In short, it was the Phaeton which would provide the template for the first of the VW-era Bentleys and also a handy short-cut in development time. With twin turbos strapped to the 6-litre W12 and Dirck van Braeckel’s sleek feline body recalling the Type R Continental, the result was the Continental GT which was unveiled in 2003 and was by any standards an impressive reworking of the 1950s Bentley heyday for the 21st century.
As launched, the two-door Continental GT boasted 550bhp and 480lb.ft, translating to a top speed of 198mph and 0-60mph in 4.8 seconds, seating four adults in an interior which boasted all the handcrafted appeal of the older cars but with the precision and quality of a modern premium car.
In 2005 the GT would be joined by a four-door version, the Flying Spur as well as the convertible GTC, while in 2008 the 603bhp Speed joined the range. A second generation arrived in 2011 courtesy of a major facelift which added a V8 engine option, while an all-new third generation was unveiled in 2018.
At £111,000 when launched, the Continental was an expensive car by any standards but it was still half the price of the outgoing models, meaning that VW’s volume aspirations were very quickly realised.
Naturally this had benefits for the used buyer and the sheer volume of Continentals produced – both GT and Flying Spur – means they are temptingly affordable today.
