Just_me

AutoWeek | Published 02/05/07, 2:43 pm et

At the start of the decade, Bentley, Maybach and Rolls-Royce offered the promise of a new gilded era in the ultra-luxury segment for big sedans, coupes and convertibles.

But Bentley has won most of the gold and nearly all the U.S. sales volume in the three years since it launched the Continental GT coupe. Bentley also appears to have done better than its chief competitors at balancing its brand name and image, products and prices - all of which spell "value for money."

Bentley sold 3,856 vehicles in the United States in 2006. Nearly all were Continental coupes and sedans. The GT coupe is Bentley's first new model since Volkswagen AG acquired the luxury brand. Bentley's U.S. lineup also includes the GTC convertible and older Arnage and Azure models.

Bentley's U.S. sales last year were 5.5 percent higher than in 2005. They were more than four times Rolls-Royce Motor Cars' global sales of 805 cars in 2006. Rolls-Royce would not disclose U.S. sales.

Meanwhile, Maybach sold 146 vehicles in the United States last year. That was down from 152 in 2005.

The 2007 Continental GT coupe and Continental Flying Spur sedan both list for $176,285. Those prices include a $3,700 federal gas-guzzler penalty and a $2,595 delivery charge.

That's about half the price of a Maybach 57 or Rolls-Royce Phantom, both of which set buyers back more than $300,000. But money is not the issue, executives of the ultra-luxury brands say.

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Mirage77

The Continental Range offers 'value for money', in the sense that you get the brand name, quality and possibly everything you want in a Bentley for so much less than say, an Arnage or a Phantom. Of course, you do pay the price for the rather bland looks...

But then again, looking from the Phaeton point of view, the FS is way overpriced. j/k

RICHBOY

I'm totally shocked!

audi_rudy

makes total sense the others are just way to overpriced to sell at the same volume as Bentley

vabboud

the comparison is not totally true
it's like comparing say mini sales to VW sales
true both have their bread and butter at the low end of the spectrum but you cannot say that VW is king because polo, cross polo, golf, jetta, gol, and the 1000 other models they cover don there outsell the mini in its dual incranation (till now)


rolls and maybach compete head to head (theoretically not in my eyes) they have 2 models, SWB and LWB in the extremely upper side of the spectrum, bentley has now 3 GT declinations and a zillion versions of their arnage


pouint for point if one were to compare arnage to maybach to rolls, it would work

but lumping in the GT declinations to say it has a higher sales volumes, given that the GT in all its forms is less than half the price and prestige of a rolls, and that it's chief competitiors are a quattroporte, and an S600, it's very much biased publicity

mercedes outsells porsche 10 to 1 maybe, what does that mean?
VW outselss lotus 1000 to 1 again what does that mean?

daimler chrysler as a whole outsells BMW ag but what does that mean?

Mirage77

That's true, Bentley's Continental Range has certainly expanded the scope of its customer base... But I see it as Rolls and Maybach's loss that they are not capitalising on where Bentley is.

vabboud

it's not about "loss"

you have to define the word "loss", at least for rolls

the maybach brand si too messed up, a smaller mayabch would be a rebadged S, so it doesn't work.

for rolls, rolls has infintely mroe prestige and aristocracy then bentley, as such it cannot and will not compete head to head with such a car as the CGT

the baby rolls has been in the pipelines for a long time, but ti's chief delay i am sure is propoer size and amrket positioning, to fit within the rolls heriatge

rolls cannot make an S600 competitor, the baby rolls will be far more expensive than any of the S600 crop, including GT FS

the arnage loses exclusiveity when medium to high reankingm anagers can get a bentley, the rolls plan is capitalizing on the core rolls values a lot, i say VW is mismanagaing the uber luxury brands it has and either reinforcing them too much (bugatti) or dilutting them too much (Bentley)

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