Used Bentley – Buy via auction or by fixed price

Bentley is one of the UK's engineering pride and has ancestry that dates back to the early age of car racing in the 1910s. The brand is known today for heavier luxury cars but in its early history the focus was on lightweight materials. Founder Walter Owen Bentley, along with his brother, found that aluminum pistons could replace the conventional ones in a car engine and lighten the weight. Bentley won Le Mans 24-hour competition for several years in the 1920s and established himself as a competent car brand in automotive sports. The success story has not been nail-biting, but partly varied with several loss-weight years and different owner configurations. Rolls-Royce took over the brand already in the 1930s and since then, until today, all are based on platforms from Rolls-Royce. While Rolls focuses entirely on comfort, Bentley has a significantly sportier image with more focus on performance and road holding as well as a sportier attribute purely in terms of design. In the 1970s, both brands were badly out and close to a collapse. British aircraft manufacturer Vickers then bought the group and Bentley was converted into a special division and the potential of the brand was as expected. The first Bentleyn from the era was called Mulsanne and was a performance sedan that helped Bentley reach nearly the same sales figures as Rolls-Royce in the late 1980s. In 1997, both makes were sold to the Volkswagen Group and engines from, among others, BMW were placed in the cars. The first big success came with the Continental GT coupe in 2003, the best-selling Bentleyn to date. The main competitors of the Continental GT are the larger models from Bentley (with rear seats and V12 engines) but also the Maserati GranTurismo and Mercedes S-class coupe, although these have lower purchase prices than the Continental GT as new.