- Set to open in 2025, the new paint shop will allow Bentley to finish vehicles in nearly 100 different colors.
- Customization is increasingly important to Bentley, whose Mulliner division grew 43 percent last year.
- The 134,000-square-foot facility will house 370 employees in its four stories of office space.
It’s hard to look at a rainbow these days and not think of the fun of the pride parade, but Bentley’s upcoming paint shop will be painted a variety of colors to celebrate the customization that will be possible inside.
Set to be completed in 2025, Bentley’s head of manufacturing, Andreas Lehe, and its finance chief, Jan-Henrik Lafrentz, broke ground on its colorful facility today. Once operational, the shop will be able to finish vehicles in almost 100 different hues, to ensure that customers get exactly the shade of paint they want.
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In addition, the new facility will hold four stories of office space, and will contain as many as 370 employees. Bentley says that the new 134,118-square-foot (12,460 square meter) building is being erected as part of a £2.5 billion (US$ 3.13 billion at current exchange rates) investment in future products at its Pyms Lane factory in Crewe.
Bentley is aiming to “set a new benchmark in next generation, digital, flexible, and high-value manufacturing operations” with the plant. That flexibility will be important to the automaker, whose in-house customizing department, Mulliner, has grown in importance in recent years.
Despite Bentley’s sales being down overall in 2023, the brand reported that more customers than ever chose to personalize their vehicle with the help of the customization division. Mulliner can offer a staggering 46 billion different configuration across the automaker’s standard range of vehicles.
As with the rest of Bentley’s headquarters, the new paint shop will be carbon-neutral, and it will play an important role in the production process as Bentley electrifies. Four years ago, the British automaker announced plans to go all-electric by 2030, but last month, it announced that it had delayed the launch of its first EV.
Initially set to be unveiled in 2025, the slower-than-expected growth of the electric vehicle market prompted Bentley to push the launch of its first EV back to 2026. Sales of the vehicle will follow a year later.
“Breaking ground on this new state-of-the-art building is a milestone moment and supports our aim for a benchmark position in new innovative technologies, skills and facilities to enable a truly digital, highly-flexible benchmark for luxury car manufacturing,” said Lehe. “While also modernizing our site, it is a clear demonstration of our ambition and long-term commitment to Crewe as we transform Bentley into the leader of sustainable luxury mobility.”
