GENSOCIAL
Luxury car manufacturer Bentley Motors achieved record sales in 2020 after delivering more than 11,000 cars.
The company, which is based in Crewe and employs hundreds of people from North Staffordshire, sold more vehicles last year than any other in its 101-year history.
This is despite the car-maker being forced to halt production for seven weeks from March – and run at 50 per cent capacity for a further nine weeks – as a result of the coronavirus crisis. The company also cut 800 staff from its workforce.
And while the pre-covid sales forecast was much greater, bosses say the results can be attributed to the introduction of new models.
The Americas remained Bentley’s number one region – with 3,035 cars – although a strong performance in China, posting an increase of 48 per cent and 2,880 cars, ran it close.
Earlier this year, bosses at Bentley announced that they expected to ‘break even’ and achieve sales of around 10,000 for 2020, which would be in line with a normal year.
Chairman and CEO of Bentley Motors, Adrian Hallmark, said: “Even though we anticipated greater sales before the pandemic struck, when you consider the level of restrictions around the world for the majority of the year, to achieve a record sales performance is a strong measure of our potential.
“As we look to the year ahead we remain cautiously optimistic as much remains uncertain. One thing that doesn’t is our commitment to progress, the first step of which is the launch of the Bentayga Hybrid. This is one of nine new models we will launch this year as we continue on our Beyond100 strategic path and our accelerated journey towards becoming a fully electrified car company by 2030.”
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New models Bentley introduced this year include the all-new Flying Spur and a high-performance V8 engine derivative.
But the Bentley Continental GT and GT Convertible together accounted for 39 per cent of total sales making it Bentley’s top-selling model line.
While the go-anywhere SUV was still the biggest selling single model, accounting for 37 per cent of total sales.
