First Bentley Bentayga SUVs delivered to customers at Bentley’s Crewe HQ

The first Bentley Bentayga SUVs have been handed over to their new owners at a special event at Bentley’s Crewe headquarters.

It’s four months since Bentley announced that production of the Bentayga SUV – Bentley’s first SUV and the car Bentley expect to grow sales considerably – had commenced, and now Bentley has built enough to start handing over cars to real customers.

The new Bentayga owners gathered at Bentley’s Crewe headquarters to pick up their cars – ‘First Edition’ Bentaygas – and were treated to access to the factory to see what goes in to building the world’s first ultra-luxury SUV.

It takes more than 130 hours to build each car, and many of those gathering have splashed out on the First Edition Bentayga, of which Bentley are producing just 608, each with Union Jack badges, 22″ Black polished alloys, illuminated treadplates, quilted leather interior and a special Breitling watch.

But under the skin the First Edition models offer the same four-wheel drive powertrain as the regular Bentayga, complete with Bentley’s 600bhp W12 able to get to 62mph in 4.1 seconds and on to 187mph.

Kevin Rose, Bentley’s Sales and Marketing man, said:

This is an historic day for Bentley and it is a great testament to all the work which has gone in to producing Bentayga, the fastest and most luxurious SUV in the world.

The customers joining us for the event have followed the Bentayga journey since we proposed the idea of a Bentley SUV, and were among the very first in the world to put their names down on the order book for First Edition cars – many before they had even seen the finished model.  Today their confidence in Bentley is repaid as they take delivery of a car which has been unanimously praised by the world’s media.

With more than 10,000 Bentayga orders already on Bentley’s books, there’s going to be no shortage of new owners anxiously waiting to join the lucky ones at Crewe getting the keys to their new wheels, but with Bentley only able to build around 5,000 a year, they may have a bit of a wait.