Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, North London, and became widely known for winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930. Bentley has been a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group since 1998 and consolidated under VW's premium brand arm Audi since 2022.
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François Pinault. In 2022 Christie's sold $8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. In 2017, the Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $450 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting.
Maybach is a German luxury car brand owned by and a part of Mercedes-Benz AG. The original company was founded in 1909 by Wilhelm Maybach and his son Karl Maybach, originally as a subsidiary of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, and it was known as Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau GmbH until 1999.
The Maybach 57 and 62 were the first automobile models of the Maybach brand since its revival by DaimlerChrysler AG. They are derived from the Mercedes-Benz Maybach concept car presented at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show. The concept car was based on the Mercedes-Benz W140 S-class sedan platform, as were the production models. The Luxury Brand Status Index 2008 placed the Maybach in first place, ahead of Rolls-Royce and Bentley. The models ceased production in February 2013 due to continued financial losses for the brand, with sales at one-fifth the level of the profitable Rolls-Royce models.
Breitling SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker founded in 1884 in Saint-Imier, Switzerland, by Léon Breitling. The company is known for its precision-made chronometers designed for aviators and is based in Grenchen, Switzerland.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom is a full-sized luxury saloon car made by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. Launched in 2003, it was the first Rolls-Royce developed and introduced after BMW purchased the right to use the Rolls-Royce name and logo in 1998. It was the seventh Rolls-Royce design to use the Phantom nameplate.
The Rolls-Royce Corniche V is a high end, two-door, four-seater luxury convertible car, that was produced in the United Kingdom from 1999 until 2002.
The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow is a full-size luxury car produced by British automaker Rolls-Royce in various forms from 1965 to 1980. It was the first of the marque to use unitary body and chassis construction.
Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought together two of the four surviving Georgian auction houses in London, Bonhams having been founded in 1793, and Phillips in 1796 by Harry Phillips, formerly a senior clerk to James Christie.
The Bentley S2 is a luxury car produced by Bentley from 1959 until 1962. The successor to the S1, it featured the new Rolls-Royce–Bentley L-series V8 engine and improved air conditioning made possible by that engine's increased output. Power steering was also standard, and a new dashboard and steering wheel were introduced. Some early S2s were built with the earlier S1 dashboard.
Bentley Continental refers to several models of cars produced by Bentley Motors. Originally, it referred to a special chassis for engines more powerful than the usual offering, supplied to a selected number of coachbuilders for the fitting of very light-weight coachwork designed under Rolls-Royce supervision.
Arwel Wyn Richards is a Welsh businessman and columnist contributing articles on cars and style.
The Aston MartinAtom is a prototype automobile built by Aston Martin (AM). Construction of the car began in 1939 and was completed in 1940. The Atom is one of the first fully functional concept cars ever built. Aston Martin explored several new technologies with the Atom, and its chassis design was the basis for the platform used by AM's post-war models well into the late 1950s.
Bentley Crewe, also named the Pyms Lane site after the street it is located on; is the headquarters and design and manufacturing centre of Bentley Motors Limited on the outskirts of Crewe, Cheshire, England. The site covers an area of 521,111 m2 (5,609,190 sq ft), of which 166,930 m2 (1,796,800 sq ft) is indoors.
The Carlton Carriage Company was a highly respected London coachbuilder that provided bespoke coachwork for some of the finest car makers of the 1920s and 1930s. They are best known for their drophead coupes which are archetypal designs of the British Jazz Era.
Girl with Balloon is a series of stencil murals around London by the graffiti artist Banksy, started in 2002. They depict a young girl with her hand extended toward a red heart-shaped balloon carried away by the wind. The locations for this work include street murals in Shoreditch and the South bank in London on the Waterloo Bridge and other murals were around London, though none remain there.
