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Bentley resumes restoration of the first T-Series sedan

Bentley has shifted one of its on-going restoration projects into high gear. Found after spending decades undriven, the first T-Series sedan built is being brought back to life by the British company's apprentices and specialists and it should be back on the road by the end of 2023. Manufactured on September 28, 1965, about a week before the model's official unveiling at that year's Paris auto show, the oldest T-Series was finished in Shell Gray with a blue interior. Bentley initially kept the car and used it as a test mule around the world. The big sedan later ended up in private hands with a blue California plate and a "Beverly Hills Motor Cars" plate frame attached to its rear end. It was last registered in 2015, according to the sticker on the plate, though Bentley notes that it has spent decades off the road and in storage. Bentley bought the car and shipped it back to its headquarters in England. It started tearing down the sedan in October 2016: A group of apprentices removed the exterior trim and began preparing the body for new paint, but the project stalled. See, this happens even to luxury carmakers — don't feel bad about the Fox-generation Mustang lingering in the back of your garage. For collectors, projects tend to get delayed when, for better or worse, life happens. Bentley ran into different hurdles: It put the T-Series on the backburner to launch its current range of models, including the Flying Spur and the Continental GT. Nearly six year later, the firm is returning to the garage to wrap things up. It sounds like the T-Series was stored indoors, and being out of the elements might be its saving grace. Mechanics managed to fire up the 6.2-liter, 225-horsepower V8 engine, and they gave it a clean bill of health; the automatic transmission is in good condition as well. There is still some body work that needs to be completed and the interior is almost completely taken apart. Bentley estimates that the project will take approximately 18 months, so it should be finished by late 2023, and it plans to add the car to its Heritage Collection when it's done.  While it's a relatively obscure classic in 2022, the T-Series remains a hugely important part of Bentley's heritage.

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

Bentley spreads its wings, hires jets to fly car bodies to Britain under Brexit

FRANKFURT — Bentley, the luxury carmaker owned by Volkswagen, has booked five Antonov cargo jets to help overcome potential supply bottlenecks in the event of a disorderly exit of Britain from the European Union, the carmaker said on Wednesday. Car manufacturers are securing additional supply routes as policymakers in Brussels and Westminster seek to strike a deal to determine the future trading relationship with continental Europe after Britain exits the European Union. Bentley, which makes high end sports cars, buys 90% of its components from continental Europe, and sells around 24% of its cars into Europe, Chief Executive Adrian Hallmark told the Financial Times' Future of the Car summit. "We have spent two years planning. We have five Antonovs that we have on reserve to fly bodies to Manchester," Hallmark said, adding that in addition to shifting car bodies by air, Bentley has hiked the level of spare parts stored for production. "We used to run just-in-time with two days stock. Now we have 14 days stock. That's 14 working days, so that's three weeks of stock," he said. The company has booked additional warehouses and planned new logistics routes in case traditional supply methods are hampered by bottlenecks. If Britain fails to secure a negotiated trade agreement with European policymakers, Bentley would be able to absorb 10% import tariffs by raising prices and cutting costs. This would be less damaging than supply disruptions. "It is not existential as long as everything flows. Stopping flows is far more dangerous than Brexit tariffs," Hallmark said, referring to supply bottlenecks. This year Bentley expects to sell more than 10,000 luxury cars and to reach breakeven, mainly thanks to a rebound in demand in China, Hallmark said. China sales are up 35% when compared with before the COVID-19 crisis. Sales in Europe and the United States up 15% Hallmark said. "Overall we are in a position where we will do well over 10,000 sales this year," he said via Webcast. "We are on the cusp of going beyond breakeven."