Rolls-Royce vs Bentley: Are They the Same Company, and Which Should You Drive?

Head to head	Rolls-Royce / Bentley	What kind of fact that is
Founded	1904–06 / 1919	Rolls and Royce met in 1904; the company was incorporated in 1906. W.O. Bentley founded his in 1919.
One company	1931–1998	Rolls-Royce took Bentley over in November 1931. Bentley calls it 67 years together.
Owner today	BMW / Volkswagen	BMW since 2003. Volkswagen since 1998, through the Audi Group since January 2022.
Built in	Goodwood / Crewe	West Sussex and Cheshire, England. Both British, both German-owned.
The founder’s brief	best car / best in class	“The best car in the world” against W.O.’s “a fast car, a good car, the best in its class”.
SUV	Cullinan / Bentayga	Rear-hinged coach doors against conventional ones. Both five-seaters, both on a $2,000 deposit here.
SUV engine	V12 / V8	Cullinan 6.75-litre V12, 563 hp as tested. Bentayga Speed 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, 641 bhp, maker’s sheet.
Two-door	Spectre / Continental GT	Fully electric against a plug-in hybrid V8. The Spectre is the one in our garage.
Two-door 0–60 mph	4.4 s / 3.1 s	Spectre at launch; Continental GT Speed. Both the makers’ figures.

Both badges, one lot on Robertson Rolls-Royce Cullinan The Rolls-Royce side of the argument: a V12, coach doors and twenty-one cubic feet. $2,000 a day; the Bentayga is $999. Dates and rate →

Are Rolls-Royce and Bentley the same company?

They were, for 67 years. They have not been since 1998, and they have built their cars in different factories for different owners since 1 January 2003.

The joining came first. W.O. Bentley’s company won Le Mans five times in the 1920s and ran out of money in the Depression; it went into receivership in July 1931, and in November 1931 Rolls-Royce took over its fiercest competitor, in the words of the Volkswagen Group’s history of Bentley. Production moved to the Rolls-Royce works in Derby and, after the war, to Crewe, where Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars were built side by side from 1946.

For most of the next half century a Bentley was a Rolls-Royce with a different grille and a sportier temperament, and often not much of the second. The pairs are easy to list: the Silver Spirit and the Bentley Mulsanne, the Silver Seraph and the Arnage, the Corniche and the Azure. So the honest answer to “is a Bentley a Rolls-Royce?” is that for decades it nearly was.

The parting took five years. In 1998 Vickers, which then owned Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, sold it. Volkswagen bought the company on 3 July 1998, with Bentley, the Crewe factory and the right to use the Rolls-Royce name until the end of 2002. But the name itself belonged to the aero-engine company, Rolls-Royce plc, and it went to BMW: in July 1998, by Rolls-Royce’s own account, the BMW Group acquired the Rolls-Royce brand. Bentley’s heritage page marks the moment the two would be separate companies once again, “after 67 years together.” Volkswagen kept building Rolls-Royces at Crewe until 2002; at one minute past midnight on 1 January 2003, the first Phantom from BMW’s new Goodwood factory was handed over, and the split was complete.

Who owns Rolls-Royce and Bentley today?

BMW owns Rolls-Royce. Volkswagen owns Bentley. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BMW Group and builds every car at Goodwood, in West Sussex. Bentley Motors has been part of the Volkswagen Group since 1998 and, by Audi’s own fact sheet, part of the Audi Group since January 2022; it builds every model at Crewe. Two British marques, two German parents, and the same rivalry W.O. Bentley and Henry Royce had before 1931, conducted now from two German head offices.

One more Rolls-Royce causes confusion here. Rolls-Royce plc, now Rolls-Royce Holdings, is the aero-engine company. It still owns the name and licenses it to BMW, and it has had nothing to do with building cars since 1971.

Does a Bentley use a Rolls-Royce engine?

Not today, and not since 2020. For most of the shared years it did: Wikipedia’s history of Bentley records that every Bentley built from 1931 to 2004 used an inherited or shared Rolls-Royce chassis and an adapted Rolls-Royce engine. The longest-lived of those engines outlasted the partnership by two decades. The Rolls-Royce–Bentley L-series V8, introduced in 1959 at 6.2 litres and later enlarged to 6.75, powered most Rolls-Royces and Bentleys for forty years; its final application was the Bentley Mulsanne, and production ended in 2020.

There was a short detour in the middle. When the companies split, BMW was already supplying engines to Crewe, and the Bentley Arnage ran on a BMW twin-turbo V8 alone from 1998 to 2000 before the old Rolls-Royce V8 came back in it. Today the two marques draw on two different groups: Bentley’s current Continental GT and Bentayga Speed use a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, and the Cullinan a 6.75-litre V12.

What each badge sells

The difference was written down by the founders, and it still holds. Rolls-Royce says its 40/50 hp of 1907, the Silver Ghost, was the car that first earned the title “the best car in the world”, and the company has built towards the back seat and the arrival ever since. W.O. Bentley’s brief was narrower and faster: “a fast car, a good car, the best in its class”, and his cars won Le Mans five times before Rolls-Royce owned them.

So a Rolls-Royce is made for the moment the car stops: the coach doors, the Spirit of Ecstasy, a ride that floats over the road rather than reporting on it. A Bentley is made for the hours before that: firmer, quicker, more willing on a mountain road, and built to be driven by the person who paid for it. Both are hand-finished in England, and both are very quiet at speed. The choice between them is not quality. It is whether you are arriving or driving.

Cullinan vs Bentayga

The two SUVs show the split most clearly, because they do the same job differently. The Cullinan has a 6.75-litre V12, 563 hp in the current Series II as The Drive tested it, twenty-one cubic feet of luggage space behind the rear seats, and rear-hinged coach doors; you step out of it facing forward, onto whatever carpet has been laid for you. It is the larger presence and the more theatrical arrival, and somehow also the more practical car with four people and real suitcases.

The Bentayga is the one nobody photographs, and that is the reason it goes out. Bentley’s current Bentayga Speed press sheet lists a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 of 641 bhp and 0–60 mph in 3.4 seconds, pending type approval; ours is the standard Bentayga, black with a cream cabin, quiet at freeway speed and settled over broken tarmac. It is the one you would rather drive yourself from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, and the one that does not turn heads at a private dinner. The rear doors open conventionally.

Here the Cullinan is $2,000 a day and the Bentayga $999, both on a $2,000 deposit. If the question underneath is the back seat, with a Maybach in the mix, Cullinan vs Bentayga vs Maybach GLS settles it on the second row.

Spectre vs Continental GT

The coupes are further apart than the SUVs, because the two makers have taken electrification in opposite directions. The Rolls-Royce Spectre is fully electric, the first electric series Rolls-Royce: two doors, four seats, 430 kW (about 577 hp), 900 Nm and 0–60 mph in 4.4 seconds by the maker’s launch figures, with a kerb weight of 2,975 kg. Rolls-Royce calls it the spiritual successor to the Phantom Coupe, and it is the most silent way to arrive anywhere.

The Bentley Continental GT, now in its fourth generation, is a plug-in hybrid. Bentley’s Continental GT Speed sheet gives a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 and a 140 kW electric motor, 771 bhp combined, 0–60 mph in 3.1 seconds, a top speed of 208 mph and 52 miles of electric range on the WLTP cycle, at 2,459 kg. It is the faster car by a long way and was built to be; the Spectre is the calmer one and was built to be that.

The Spectre is the one in our garage. Ours is chartreuse, it is $2,500 a day on a $5,000 deposit, and it is the two-door to take when the evening is for two and the arrival should be heard by nobody.

Rolls-Royce or Bentley: the verdict by the day

Choose by what the day is for, not by which badge sounds dearer. For an arrival, a wedding, a gala, a principal off a flight, take the Cullinan: the coach door is the moment, and the boot takes the luggage. For driving yourself, a week on the coast or a dinner where nobody should look twice, take the Bentayga. For two people and an evening, take the Spectre, which makes almost no sound and stops conversations on any street it is parked on.

Both badges are here, on one lot on Robertson Boulevard, which is the one place the 1931 marriage still holds. Drive a Rolls-Royce in Los Angeles has the Cullinan, the Spectre and the rest of the marque with their calendars, and the Bentley page has the Bentayga.

What it costs, and how it reaches you

The Cullinan and the Bentayga carry a $2,000 refundable deposit and the Spectre $5,000, each back 5–7 business days after the car returns. The Protection plan is priced per day off the deposit band, and the live rate and any multi-day block are on each car’s own page.

Collection from our lot on Robertson Boulevard is free and delivery to the partner hotels in Beverly Hills is complimentary. Airport delivery is $150 both ways standard, where the car waits in the airport parking structure and you take the free shuttle out to it — about half an hour — or $300 both ways VIP, where it is waiting at the terminal when you walk out, the natural choice for a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley; one direction is half. They combine per leg. The mileage allowance is written into your rental agreement, and the rest is in the terms.