Eighty years in one car park
Bentley has been building cars at Crewe since 1946, and on 29 August 2026 it marked the anniversary in the most direct way available: it parked a new car next to the old one it was made to look like, at the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts' Club celebration at the British Motor Museum.
The old one is a Mark VI from Bentley's Heritage Collection, bodied by H.J. Mulliner in two-tone green and black and delivered in January 1950. The Mark VI was the first Crewe-built Bentley, produced from 1946 to 1951, and 4,001 were made.
The new one
Mulliner's answer is a Continental GT Azure in solid Barnato Green with a Mulliner Black contrasting roof, which is the two-tone split of the 1950 car read onto a modern shape. Over that goes the carbon-fibre styling specification, black-painted 22-inch ten-spoke wheels with bright machining, black brake calipers and self-levelling 'B' wheel badges.
The colour split is the whole idea. Bentley did not reinterpret the Mark VI so much as match it.
Inside
Cricket Ball red as the main hide with Beluga as the secondary, diamond quilting and perforation, and embroidered Azure emblems. The veneer is dark stained burr walnut laid over Grand Black piano with a chrome pinstripe. The Rotating Display and the Naim audio system are both fitted.
The detail that dates it is on the sills: treadplates inscribed "Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of production in Crewe, 1946-2026".
What Bentley has not said
No engine specification and no price. Bentley's own release also never uses the word one-off, though every outlet that covered the car describes it as one, and nothing about a Barnato Green and burr walnut commission suggests it was ever headed for an order sheet.
One detail the release does not mention and the coverage does: the treadplates carry outline graphics of both cars, the Mark VI and the modern Continental GT, above the inscription.
Sources: The International Club for Rolls-Royce and Bentley enthusiasts celebrates 80 years of production at Crewe (Bentley Media, August 27, 2026). Bentley's press images sit behind a media login, so the photograph is our own Continental GT hero.