Post-merger kerbside damage – more than your paintwork can get scratched

Some of the most monumental post-M&A disasters have happened in the car industry. One that comprehensively undermined reputation and brand value was the takeover of Bentley by Rolls-Royce in 1931 as a result of the company’s finances collapsing courtesy of the Great Depression. Where’ve we heard all this before GM and Chrysler?

Up until this point Bentley cars were positioned as the epitome of exclusive and expensive luxury cars which achieved a sporting heritage that comprehensively shaded the racing ambitions of the Germans and Italians. Following so shortly after the emergence of the company’s first production car in 1921, the Le Mans victories of 1924, and 1927-1930, notably with the legendary Speed Six, secured the Bentley name in the annals of motor sport history.

Up until its takeover by Volkswagen in 1998, Bentley’s sporting ambitions went out of the window, no doubt influenced by Depression-era cutbacks, and under the marque’s new owner Bentley cars became little more than rebadged Rolls Royce luxury saloons with a less distinctive radiator grille. Sporting heritage seemingly meant very little to the board of Rolls- Royce whose singular ambition was to build the best car in the world – and that meant a luxury saloon or limousine, not a sports car. Volkswagen had different ideas. The current model Bentley Continental GTC Speed released in 2003 and capable of 202 mph, has arguably bestowed on the Bentley brand the title of ‘maker of the world’s best high performance luxury car’. The 6.0 litre, twin-turbocharged W12 engine, producing 552 hp (412 kW) has come a long way since the legendary 84 mph Speed Sixes.

Under more visionary and more financially stable ownership, the Bentley brand has now regained the sporting ambitions it began with 80+ years ago. The purchaser of a new £153,000 Bentley Continental GTC is buying it for the perception it creates of the high speed luxury sports grand tourer. The buyer of a T1 Bentley saloon back in 1966 would have other reasons... quite possibly viewing it as a (slightly) less expensive way to fool the neighbours that you had hit the big time in the luxury saloon car stakes.

It took Bentley 72 years to regain its rightful brand status. How long will it take Chrysler’s new owner Fiat to return the brand to its former glory, to cast aside the negative perceptions that have all but destroyed its credibility in recent years and return it to the former glory days where innovation and style were paramount?

 

 

Let’s hope it won’t take until 2081.


Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Australia, United Kingdom and India, and joint founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.