1991 Bentley Turbo R on 2040-cars

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The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

Bentley confirms SUV for 2016

It looks like the addition of a Royal Baby isn't the only big news coming out of the UK this week. Bentley has ended all of the will they/won't they speculation by confirming today that it will produce an SUV. Earmarked to go on sale in 2016, the as-yet unnamed Bentley SUV will help create an extra 1,000 jobs in the UK.
While no concrete details have been released, Bentley says that it will be the "most luxurious and most powerful SUV" on the market. Past rumors have indicated that the SUV could look completely different from the 2012 EXP 9 F Concept shown above, be renamed the Falcon and offer options like a plug-in hybrid version and three-row seating. To prepare for a fourth model in its lineup, Bentley will be investing 800 million British pounds (around $1.2 billion USD) into its Crewe headquarters and production lines over the next three years. Scroll down for Bentley's press release officially confirming the new SUV.

Bentley Grand Convertible is grand, is a convertible

What you see above is the Bentley Grand Convertible, live from the Los Angeles Auto Show. It's basically a droptop version of the Mulsanne Speed, which would seem to be a foregone conclusion for production, but apparently isn't, according to Bentley Chairman and CEO, Wolfgang Dürheimer.
"We are eagerly awaiting the response of our customers to this car. We will ensure that this car - if it reaches the roads - will be a highly exclusive, extremely limited collector's piece."
With its production possibilities out of the way, and with the image gallery you see above proving that it is, indeed, a convertible, we can move on to what makes this Grand Convertible so grand. Equipped with the same 6.75-liter engine with 530 horsepower and 811 pound-feet of torque as its hardtop brethren, it certainly won't be lacking for power. The Grand Convertible has been "fashioned entirely by hand from the very finest materials," says Bentley, and the tonneau is made from the largest piece of wood veneer ever applied by the automaker.