Today I accidentally saw photos of two collectible antique cars posted by a friend on WeChat. One is a 1998 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur Extended Edition and the other is a 2004 Bentley Elegant RL.

Rolls-Royce and Bentley are both well-known British top luxury car brands, but these two competing brands actually have almost the same appearance in the photos, especially the appearance of the iconic China Open. the difference. This is a bit strange. They are obviously rivals, but how come they have become a popular car with new logos? Do you know? In fact, a long time ago, Rolls-Royce and Bentley were twin brothers. Let’s tell you the story of these two brands.

Rolls-Royce was founded in England in 1906 by two partners, Frederick Henry Royce and Charles Stewart Rolls. . The first model launched was called Silver Ghost, and its Chinese name was Silver Ghost (no relation to the current small Rolls-Royce Ghost). The successful launch of the Silver Ghost established Rolls-Royce's position in the field of top luxury cars. Its bell-top-shaped front air grille is still used by the Rolls-Royce brand as a totem.

The birth of Bentley is completely different from Rolls-Royce. Walter Owen Bentley, the founder of Bentley, was originally a designer of aircraft engines. He loved racing and had a persistent pursuit of speed. Therefore, in 1919, he founded Bentley Motors, specializing in the production of high-performance sports cars, and also participated in various automobile events many times. Due to Bentley's excellent racing performance, it has achieved excellent results many times and has gradually become highly respected by many car enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. After the global economic crisis in 1930, Bentley's operations immediately encountered problems. In 1931, Bentley's debt reached more than 100,000 pounds and it could not continue production, thus declaring bankruptcy. Central Equitable Trust plc becomes the new owner of Bentley Motors plc. The actual shareholder of the company is Rolls-Royce. Mr. Walter Owen Bentley, the founder of Bentley, has completely become an employee of Rolls-Royce this time. Subsequently, Rolls-Royce established a new Bentley Motors Co., Ltd. and became a subsidiary company of Rolls-Royce.

After Rolls-Royce and Bentley became brother companies, the two companies began to jointly develop important parts such as bodies, engines, and chassis. From this time on, Rolls-Royce and Bentley models became the standard replacements. Cars, the two brands are highly similar, and both cars are very expensive. Bentley has also transformed from a performance car for a stupid guy into a mature and stable luxury car. The head office has no special positioning distinction between the two brands. It only has different promotion weights in various European countries and the United States and other regions.

During this period, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars also produced engines, especially aircraft engines. We can often see the engine with the "double R" logo on Boeing and Airbus aircraft, which is Rolls-Royce. Made by Si company. Especially after World War II, when sales of top-end luxury cars were poor, Rolls-Royce even temporarily shifted its main business to aircraft engine manufacturing. At present, Rolls-Royce has established its aircraft engine manufacturing business as a separate company and completely separated it from its automotive business.

The powerful alliance allowed these two luxury brands to fight side by side until 1990. At this time, Rolls-Royce found that Bentley had more market, and the Bentley brand accounted for 52% of Rolls-Royce's sales, exceeding the sales of Rolls-Royce's own brand. Therefore, the parent company decided to strengthen the production investment of the Bentley brand. The entire 1990s was a period when Bentley launched the most new cars when it was under Rolls-Royce. The two cars we mentioned at the beginning were model platforms launched during this period.

But even such a productive era could not change the poor financial situation of Rolls-Royce Corporation at that time.

Vickers Group, the parent company of Rolls-Royce, began preparing to sell Rolls-Royce in an attempt to save the company. As early as 1990, the BMW Group had already controlled Rolls-Royce Aircraft Engine Company, so BMW was the most likely buyer to acquire Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. In April 1998, Vickers Group was originally planning to sell its automotive business to BMW for US$575 million, but at this time the German Volkswagen Group intervened halfway and finally successfully acquired Rolls-Royce Motor Company for a sky-high price of 1.44 billion marks. Faced with Vickers' backbiting, the BMW Group fought back. The Rolls-Royce Aircraft Engine Company, which owned the Rolls-Royce trademark, became BMW's trump card. The Rolls-Royce Aircraft Engine Company opposed the Volkswagen Group's use of Rolls-Royce. The "Double R" brand logo insists on licensing the Rolls-Royce name and trademark rights to the BMW Group for use. So Volkswagen bought the rights to use the "Flying Goddess" car logo and the radiator grille, but there was no way to manufacture a Rolls-Royce brand car; similarly, BMW got the Rolls-Royce car name, but did not have the car logo or water tank. Right to use the grille. This is obviously a life-or-death situation for Volkswagen and BMW.

Finally, the BMW Group and the Volkswagen Group reached an understanding and signed an agreement, which stipulated that the BMW Group would resume the production of Rolls-Royce brand cars from 2003, while the Volkswagen Group would continue to produce Rolls-Royce brand cars from 2003 onwards. Crewe, the first-line factory of Rolls-Royce and Bentley, continues to produce Bentley brand cars. In this way, the dust settled, and the two British luxury brands, Rolls-Royce and Bentley, were respectively incorporated into the two German automobile giants. Since then, Rolls-Royce and Bentley, two good brothers who have spanned more than half a century, have parted ways. The models represented by Rolls-Royce Phantom and Ghost that we see now have no similarity at all to Bentley's Mulsanne and Flying Spur models. , both major brands have opened a new era.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.