Bentley Car Wallpapers and Pictures
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Bentley Motors Limited is a British manufacturer of automobiles founded in England on 18 January 1919 by Walter Owen Bentley (known as W.O. Bentley or just W.O). Mr. Bentley had been previously known for his range of rotary aero-engines in World War I, the most famous being the Bentley BR1 as used in later versions of the Sopwith Camel. Since 1998 the company has been owned by the Volkswagen Group of Germany.
The company was always underfunded and Bentley turned to millionaire Woolf Barnato for help in 1925. As part of a re-financing deal, leaving him effectively owning the company, Barnato became chairman. A great deal of Barnato’s fortune was devoted to keeping Bentley afloat but the Great Depression destroyed demand for the company’s expensive products, and it was finally sold to Rolls-Royce in 1931.
Rolls-Royce had bought Bentley secretly using a company named the British Central Equitable Trust: not even Bentley himself knew the true identity of the purchaser until the deal was completed.[1] A new company, wholly owned by Rolls-Royce, was formed as Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd. As W.O. Bentley was little more than an employee, he left to join Lagonda in 1935 when his contract was up for renewal. The Cricklewood factory was closed and sold and production moved to the Rolls-Royce works in Derby.
In the 1980s Bentley became a separate, high performance car line once again typified by the 1980 Mulsanne. The new sporting image created a new interest in the name and sales as a proportion of output started to rise. In 1986 the Rolls-Royce:Bentley ratio was 60:40 and in 1991 50:50.
The Bentley factory in Crewe, Cheshire, is still known in the town by the name “Royce’s”.