Inside the Rolls-Royce & Bentley Styling Department 1971 to 2001

From a small design team working on the Silver Spirit/Mulsanne, to becoming Chief Stylist, Graham Hull peels back the curtain on an idiosyncratic institution during his time at Crewe. Throwing light on a factory motivated as much by pride, as the bottom-line, all the projects, whether production, special commission, or aborted designs, are covered, and the often unique styling process is explored. This process was a key element in the resurgence of the dormant Bentley marque, that, with its fortunes on the rise, became the star of the Geneva Motor Show, attracting commissions from wealthy enthusiasts for totally bespoke vehicles. Founding fathers Royce and Rolls melded engineering with marketing, but as marketing took over, this union fractured. The drama of how this British institution was divided between BMW and VW, and how aesthetic design, never cherished by British management, was increasingly recognised, is fundamental to the story. The bewildering number of projects during the 1990s is a genuine eye-opener and a phenomena that demanded unique peoples, skills, and facilities.

Features

• Unique insider’s story of styling Rolls-Royce & Bentley cars
• How special commissions saved the company in the 1990s
• Previously unseen renderings of special commission and concept vehicles
• Bentley’s extraordinary re-birth, from barely 3% of production to the entire factory
• Fly-on-the wall view of the VW take over
• Candid reflections on the seven Managing Directors, from 1971-2001
• Describes project charts from the period
• The untold Corniche story – the last Crewe-built Rolls-Royce
• The untold story of the evolution of the Silver Seraph/Arnage
• The importance of Crewe’s interior design department