Flush drivers buying hot pink interiors boost Bentley’s profits
Mega-rich stand out from the crowd by choosing garish finishing touches to customise their motors
FOR the time-poor mega-rich, trips to a car dealer’s showroom may not always be convenient.
But never fear: Bentley buyers can request that designers and sales reps travel to them, laden with samples of lacquered walnut, Swedish bull leather, tweed and other luxury materials, to help fit out their dream car.
Growing demand for custom finishes, such as pink and orange interiors, hand-stitched seats and stone trims have helped increase the average cost of a Bentley by €50,000 (£43,000) over the past few years, the British car maker has claimed. It can charge €220,000 per vehicle, on average, thanks to the superrich splurging pandemic savings forced on them by lockdowns on custom interiors. Before the pandemic, the vehicles cost around €170,000 each.
Adrian Hallmark, Bentley’s chief executive, said the days of dealers driving Bentley’s designs and selling “cars for funerals” dominated by black and grey paint finishes were over. Customers were increasingly opting to design their cars themselves, either by choosing from millions of trim and paint combinations, and other options, or by buying into Bentley’s most expensive Mulliner option, which offers to design one-off commissions from scratch, at prices that can run into the millions.
Richer wood trims, bespoke seat designs and other extras can quickly add €100,000 to the cost of a Bentayga SUV, Continental GT or Flying Spur.
“Dealers just wanted a simple spec, a dark colour on the outside, a light colour on the inside and a lowish spec so they [could] sell it to anybody,” he said.
“Now the process is customer-led, leading to bolder demands from clients who want something unique, and are also not concerned about resale value.”
Buyers can choose from trims made from eucalyptus, walnut or even 5,000-year-old wood salvaged from East Anglian bogs and rivers, as well as more exotic materials such as stone.
Seats in magenta, blue and canary yellow are in demand, as are tweed trims and buyers also request plantbased materials instead of leather.
More expensive options include seats that detect tiredness and lack of warmth, and heat and massage their occupants accordingly. Bentley obsessives can even buy a £1.5 million modern replica of the 1920s Bentley Blower racing car, built by painstakingly tearing down an original, 3D scanning its components and hand–making new versions the originals, which now fetch £20 million.
Mindful of harsh economic times ahead, Bentley will reduce production, slightly, from this year’s 15,000 vehicles, which had the Vw-owned marque’s Crewe factory running flat out. But, Mr Hallmark said: “We are optimistic for 2023 at the moment. We are alert, awake. Whatever we need to do to get through this, we will.” Bentley posted record profits of €575 million for the first nine months of this year, up 109 per cent on the same period last year.