Volkswagen Group to Bentley: Get Your Act Together, Now

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

It’s a brand showcased in countless music videos over the past two decades, but that doesn’t mean it features very highly in owner Volkswagen Group’s good books.

British ultra-luxury marque Bentley was just given a dressing down by its strict German guardians, told to shape up and start making money or face the consequences. The stern ultimatum came from the Piech and Porsche families, the auto group’s majority shareholders.

While the parents of the parent group didn’t spell out what would happen if Bentley doesn’t turn over a new leaf in the next one to two years, it’s looking like the brand could find itself in a basket on the front steps of an orphanage.

One to two years. That’s the timeline for a complete turnaround, according Hans Michel Piech.

Wolfgang Porsche, patriarch of the two clans, complained that Bentley, despite its flashiness, just isn’t pulling its weight. “The important thing is for every [VW Group] brand to generate a reasonable contribution margin,” he told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper (as reported by Automotive News Europe). “That is not currently the case at Bentley, and we are not satisfied.”

Bentley, which has became a member of the VW family in 1998, recorded a $157 million loss during the first three quarters of 2018, down from a slight profit a year earlier.

It’s not all Bentley’s fault, however. The company’s new Continental GT was slow in making it to market due to transmission tinkering (the unit’s sourced from Porsche), while the depressed British pound, coupled with the fact that the UK-headquartered Bentley sources many components from Germany, hit the brand’s balance sheet hard in 2018. Another setback arose from Europe’s new WLTP test cycle, which Bentley didn’t properly prepare for. As a result, its vehicles ended up “stuck in the queue,” CEO Adrian Hallmark told Automotive News Europe in November.

Still, Hallmark claims he’s confident his company will make its parents happy. The exec predicts a return to profit in 2019. It had better. As Volkswagen Group continues its streamlining efforts, the automaker has expressed a strong willingness to sell off non-essential assets.

[Image: VW Group]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Thebanana Thebanana on Jan 11, 2019

    Kettle meet pot.

  • WallMeerkat WallMeerkat on Jan 14, 2019

    They used to be a gentleman's express, the caddish version of a Rolls Royce. Now they're just plain ugly, stupid googly headlights like an ugly early 2000s Subaru. The Bentayga looks like an ugly vulgar monster truck version of a London cab. Strange how things turn around, mid 90s where VW and BMW were fighting over Rolls Royce. VW got the plants and production lines, BMW got the name. VW had to run with Bentley. Mercedes in the sidelines licked their wounds and tried to make Maybach a thing. I wonder if Daimler-Benz will be circling Bentley again?

  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
  • EBFlex The best gift would have been a huge bonfire of all the fak mustangs in inventory and shutting down the factory that makes them.Heck, nobody would even have to risk life and limb starting the fire, just park em close together and wait for the super environmentally friendly EV fire to commence.
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