Rolls versus Bentley? Shouldn’t that be Rolls and Bentley? I still have trouble accepting these two as rival companies – or rather, branches of rival companies. I don’t think there is another case of one historic carmaker taking control of another, keeping the junior brand alive (just barely, at times) for decades, only to be bought off and split back up, through a cunning legal loophole, by two foreign giants.
In the end, all this complex corporate warfare brought us more variety in the rarefied world of luxury coupés, so I guess it was worth it. I remember the ‘90s, when all you could get were old-fashioned (even then) Corniches and their Continental clones for your hard-won lottery earnings. Now, you actually get a choice. The system works!
It’s not every day that you find these two estranged high-end Britishers in coupé form sixty-nining out in public like that, so we can make a direct comparison of these two beasts. In the Wraith corner, we have a twin turbo 623hp BMW V12, displacing 6592cc and pushing this 2.5 ton two-door from 0 to 60mph in 4.4 seconds and, if pushed yet further, all the way up to the 250kph limiter. Brisk, for a Rolls.
Continentally-speaking, though, things are a bit more complicated. One could be tempted by two VAG-made twin-turbo engines: either a modest 500hp 4-litre V8 or an adequate 616hp 6-litre W12. I’m not sure how one can tell the two apart, externally. The Bentley is about 150kg lighter and overall shorter than the Wraith, so one might expect even more impressive acceleration times. And thanks to an absence of limiter, both 8- and 12-cyl. Continentals could theoretically reach over 300kph.
Then, there’s the styling. That is much more subjective of course, but the Rolls-Royce’s square face does not blend that well with the rest of the car. The rear end works better, but it still looks a bit obese from this angle, and what chrome there is is laid on very, very thick. Though I’m not sure they actually add anything practically, the suicide doors at least give the Wraith a bit of a quirk, if nothing else. And it’s a true hardtop, so kudos for that.
The Bentley is a fastback hardtop too. And anything the Wraith does it can do better. And quicker. And… prettier? This generation of Continental looks better resolved than its predecessor and less fussy than the one than the one they are making now.
The Roller tries to deal with its mass by the cunning use of contrasting tones, which does help some. But that mug is just too abrupt for my taste, and it never did change much over the decade it spent in production, which has just stopped this year, apparently. So the Bentley wins in my view. Not that I would ever seriously contemplate owning anything of the sort, but, you know, just in case someone out there needs an idea for a Christmas present or something.
These two are very similar in many ways – brash, beefy, British as Queen Victoria (i.e. German at heart) and all that. But given that they were the Twiddle-dee and Twiddle-dum of luxury marques a couple of decades before, these Big British Coupés (let’s hear it for the BBC!) are actually quite different now. A rare case of a divorce unequivocally making the world a better place.
Related post:
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: Rolls Royce Wraith – The Personal Luxury Coupe Lives, For A Price, by PN
In the old days (50s and 60s) Rolls Royce was new money and Bentleys were old money!
Nice looking Hyundais!
Despite being on the local highways every day I see very few of these late Rolls Royce BMWs, but do see the occasional VW Bentley,
only last Friday was the last one checking my mirrors before merging after a roundabout there was a odd looking set of lights coming up so I held off untill they flew past and realised shit those Continentals accelerate well by which time it was out of sight, black and shiny but no other details
I wonder if either brand is very profitable now that they can use corporate parts instead of each other’s. There seem to be a lot more super rich people worldwide than 30 years ago, which was more prosperous than 50 years ago.
They’re quite a bit more profitable. The Bentleys, in particular, are halfway to being mass-produced, and–now that the Mulsanne is gone–they all use corporate VW Group engines and platforms: MSB for the cars and an iteration of MLB for the Bentayga.
The purchase of Rolls-Royce Motors and its “break up” between VW and BMW is a story with many legends and several parents.
Personally, I always had an issue with the suggestion VW didn’t realise they weren’t buying Rolls-Royce cars in full (or indeed at all, as the rights to the R-R name etc are owned by separate aero-engine business and only licenced to the car business). That was no secret and fully in the public domain and if you’re spending £500m you will check what you’re getting for your money.
Yes, BMW played their hand well, securing rights to the R-R Cars name etc for (IIRC) 50 years from Rolls-Royce Aero, who were already a business partner of BMW anyway. And the VW plan for a super luxury car based on Audi/Porsche platforms etc fitted better with the more affordable Bentley brand.
In simple terms, VW bought the business from Vickers plc but didn’t secure/want the rights to the R-R name; BMW did a separate deal to secure the automotive rights to the R-R name, and then did a very thorough and BMW standard job of producing the Phantom et al, in a brand new factory. Out did Bentley/VW and, BMW will be pleased for you to note, Mercedes and Maybach in the process.
So BMW were happy, Vickers sold to the higher bidder and R-R Aero got a licensing deal as well. And VW haven’t done too badly.
And to answer your question about other examples – in a convoluted way, Leyland bought Rover, a process that didn’t work that well for Land Rover (or Jaguar), but the history of Land Rover post the 2000 sale from the BL remnant held by BMW to Ford and then Tata hasn’t been too shabby.
And I’d take the Rolls from this pair, please, though RHD would be preferred.
It wasn’t that Volkswagen didn’t want to secure the rights to the Rolls-Royce name; it’s that they outright neglected to read the contract of the deal and actually do so. They didn’t realize when they bid £430 for the factory, employees, tooling, IP, etc…that the most valuable part of the deal (the Rolls-Royce name and logo) were not included, because Vickers did not own them.
BMW swooped in and licensed the rights for £30, less than a tenth of what VW paid for everything else. Moreover, BMW–who was by then supplying engines and other components for the Arnage and the Silver Seraph–had a clause in its contract that it could cease supplying components with a year’s notice, and threatened to do just that, once VW won the company.
The reason Vickers had been using BMW engines was because they’d been unable to get the heritage 6.75-liter L-Series V8 through emissions. But with the financial might of VW, that was now back on the table. VW hurried up and modified the Arnage to fit the 6.75-liter–something it wasn’t designed to accommodate–and got it through emissions. For, I believe, the year 2000, both engines were sold simultaneously: the Arnage Green Label had the BMW 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8, while the Arnage Red Label had the Bentley/Rolls-Royce 6.75-liter V8.
It was also to BMW’s benefit to play nice with Volkswagen, because they needed time to ramp up the new Goodwood facility and what would become the 2003 Phantom. The Phantom was to share much of its electrical architecture with the E65 7 Series and L30/third-gen Range Rover (before BMW sold Land Rover to Ford and that car was renamed the L322, getting instead a mix of dated E38 and E39 electronics; BMW was loathe to hand its flagship tech over to a competitor.) Since none of that was ready, there would have been a nice four- or five-year gap had Bentley-under-Volkswagen ceased making cars entirely.
Fortunately, BMW and Volkswagen reached an agreement whereby Bentley-under-Volkswagen would continue to make Rolls-Royces through 2002, and not again after. Unlike its Arnage sibling, the Silver Seraph retained its BMW engine (in this case a N/A V12) until its discontinuation in 2002. However, the Rolls-Royce Corniche V was introduced in 2000, and since it was heavily related to the Bentley Azure, it *did* get the Bentley/Rolls-Royce V8 instead of the BMW V12.
But what’s more interesting than all of that…is how BMW ever ended up in the mix with Vickers, in the first place. See, back in the early 90s, Bentley began to dream up a smaller, sportier model. Their SZ platform–which originated in the very early 80s and which underpinned most of their cars and a good deal of the coachbuilt Bentley Blackpool models–was ill-suited to the task. So, Bentley engineers cobbled together a prototype convertible out of an E34 M5, and displayed it at the 1994 Geneva Auto Show as the Bentley Concept Java.
Two things happened out of that. One was that one of Bentley’s Best customers, the Sultan of Brunei, became smitten with it and commissioned several running examples of the Java: six coupes, six wagons and six convertibles. The other was that BMW engineers soon caught wind of the fact that there was a Bimmer underneath all the drag, and were interested in collaborating on an actual production model. This new model would use the underpinnings and powertrain of the then-in-development E39 M5, and would come in at least coupe and convertible form.
For whatever reason, that project died. According to my research, Vickers simply didn’t have the resources to interface with a company as large as BMW on that endeavor, and also needed to focus on the upcoming replacements for its core models, the aforementioned P2000 (Arnage) and P3000 (Silver Seraph). So the Java was dropped. But that’s when Vickers figured out how much it would cost to get the L-Series V8 through emissions and began talking to BMW about being a core supplier for the new cars, which is exactly what happened.
The idea of a smaller, sportier Bentley with Germanic bones was finally realized some years later…with the 2004 Continental GT that is the subject of our article. Only, its sibling wasn’t the BMW M5; it was the considerably weirder Volkswagen Phaeton, which–among other things–used an all-steel interpretation of the Audi construction, replete with longitude-transaxle and engine-forward arrangement.
The latest (2019-ish) Continental GT/GTC and Flying Spur are a bit more pedigreed, because they’ve hopped over to the Porsche-developed MSB platform, which is shared with the Panamera and which has a more-traditional layout wherein the engine is set behind the wheels.
Thanks for your detailed and accurate description of these events.
+100!
You have the beginnings of a post right there, Kyree.
Find a Seraph and/or an Arnage, take a few pics, and it’s good to go.
I have such a picture. There’s an older gentleman sometimes seen tooling around the Oklahoma City metro in his silver Silver Seraph. I last saw him lecturing what looked like his grandson at a Walgreens for trying to get in the car with muddy feet.
I drove into Toronto this week and was passed by a white Bentley of this model. It is such an elegant shape, especially compared to the Rolls. The designers really nailed it.
It was one of the first warm days (or maybe not cold), about 10C, and all four windows were down about 4 inches. It seemed odd as we were on a highway and they must have been doing at least 125 kph.
It’s actually very easy to tell the V8 and W12 Continentals and Flying Spurs apart. When the V8 was introduced in, I believe, 2013, it had a completely different front bumper, as well as sportier-looking black grille inserts.
But my dear Dr Tatra, it is truth universally acknowledged that these steeds are reserved only for those whose beliefs encompass the idea that their own rear-facing effluvia carries no odour, which I’m afraid renders your canine analogy – say, now there’s a word! – nugatory.
Personally, I would be more inclined to the notion that the possessors of these crassmotors – it’s German word, newly in use, in fact, as of now – could partake of the option I would offer them whereby their lips can meet in suctionable contact with the human regions on me to which your canine analogy made oblique reference – for canines, of course – wherein they will find an unperfumed reality.
Quite apt, all this, as it is clear to one and all that these cars are, after all, just large, bulging piles.
I think that I would be afraid to drive a car that screams. “Carjack ME!” I was at a gas station off the 101 in San Jose one night in the ’90’s. a nice Rolls pulled in and the owner, a middle aged gentleman, dressed in a golf shirt with nice slacks and shoes, ( and of course a giant watch) gets out and fills it up. His Wife gets out to stretch her legs. She is noticeably wearing a diamond necklace and earrings. They looked like a couple that should drive a Rolls, probably on their way to Carmel.
Currently, I see more Bentleys around town than Rolls.