The Bentley Winged B dates from 1919, when motoring artist F. Gordon Crosby drew a B between two wings and gave each wing a different number of feathers. In July 2025 Bentley unveiled the fifth version of the emblem.
- Country
-
United Kingdom - Active
- Since 1919
- Founded by
- Walter Owen (W.O.) Bentley
- Website
- Official website ↗
A railway apprentice with a plan
Walter Owen Bentley wanted one thing. In his own words: “a fast car, a good car, the best in its class.” He was born in 1888, started a railway apprenticeship at Doncaster at sixteen, set up a business importing French cars in 1912 and spent the First World War designing aero engines for fighter planes. Then, with the war over, he built the Experimental Bentley No. 1 and gave the company his own surname.
Bentley Motors was founded in London on 10 July 1919, the date Bentley itself marked with its centenary in 2019. The first factory was at Cricklewood. The first production car went to a customer called Noel van Raalte in September 1921, and he paid £1,050 for it. Its 3-litre engine made 85 bhp, which was enough for 80 mph at a time when that was a serious number.
The Bentley Boys, Derby and Crewe
The 1920s belonged to the Bentley Boys, the wealthy amateurs who raced the cars. Bentley won Le Mans in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930. In 1924 John Duff and Frank Clement did it in the only non-French car in the race. In 1929 Bentleys took the first four places. In 1930 Woolf Barnato bet £100 that his 6½-litre Speed Six could beat the Blue Train from Cannes to Calais.
Racing glory didn’t pay the bills. In 1931, after financial difficulties, the company was bought by its rival Rolls-Royce, and production moved from Cricklewood to Derby. The first Bentley built there was the 3½ Litre of 1933, sold as the Silent Sports Car. A new factory went up in Crewe in 1938 to make aircraft engines, and in 1946 car production moved in. The first Bentley to leave Crewe was the Mark VI. The town has been home ever since.
The marriage with Rolls-Royce lasted 67 years. In 1998 Volkswagen acquired Bentley and announced an investment of £500 million in the marque. Five years later the Continental GT arrived, which Bentley calls the first car of its modern era. Since 1 March 2021, Audi has held management responsibility for Bentley within the Volkswagen Group.
Why the B has wings
The Winged B goes back to the very start. In 1919 F. Gordon Crosby, a well-known motoring artist and a friend of W.O., drew a prominent B flanked by a pair of feathered wings. According to Bentley, the wings were chosen to represent the exhilaration of motion, and perhaps also as a reference to W.O.’s wartime work on fighter-plane engines. Crosby added a trick: he gave each wing a different number of feathers, to make the emblem unique and harder to copy.
Under Rolls-Royce ownership a new emblem appeared in 1931. This second version was symmetrical, with ten straightened feathers on each side and a plain black oval behind the B. It stayed in use for decades. In the 1990s a third version brought back the curve of the wings, made the design more ornate and, as a nod to Crosby, reshaped the central B to echo the original.
The version most people know arrived in 2002 on the first Continental GT, the opening car of the Volkswagen era. It honoured the 1919 original by going asymmetric again: ten feathers on the left, eleven on the right. Count them next time you see one.
New wings for 2025
On 1 July 2025 Bentley unveiled new Bentley Wings in Crewe, the first step of a wider design and brand overhaul. The wings are sharper and more dramatic, angled, in Bentley’s words, more like a peregrine falcon than the softer shapes that came before. The feathers below the B have gone. The diamond pattern inside the wings stays. The B itself now sits in a redesigned jewel with a bevelled glass edge, a chamfered metal surround and a three-dimensional B beneath the surface, detailed like a luxury watch so it can be used on its own.
The emblem was designed in house. Director of Design Robin Page led a small internal team, and the winning concept came from a competition within the design team, proposed by Young Nam of the Interior Design group. Page put it this way: “If a luxury brand is the product of the stories it has created, then its emblem is its signature.” Bentley counts the 2025 design as the fifth iteration of the Winged B, and it was first worn by a concept car revealed a week later, on 8 July.
The cars under the wings
Each version of the badge has a car that goes with it: the Cricklewood racers, the Derby and Crewe saloons, and the Continental GT that opened the modern chapter.
Landmark Bentleys, decade by decade
- 1921: 3 Litre. The first production Bentley, delivered in September 1921, and the car that made W.O.’s dream real.
- 1929: 4½ Litre Blower. The supercharged car of Bentley Boy Tim Birkin. Only four Team Blowers were built, and Bentley has called them the most valuable Bentleys in the world.
- 1930: Speed Six. The 6½-litre car in which Woolf Barnato raced the Blue Train from Cannes to Calais for a £100 bet.
- 1952: R-Type Continental. A Mulliner-bodied coupe with a top speed just under 120 mph, and the last Bentley without a Rolls-Royce equivalent for 30 years.
- 1985: Turbo R. Developed from the Mulsanne, and in Bentley’s words the fastest road-going Bentley of its age.
- 2003: Continental GT. The first car of the modern Bentley era and the first to wear the asymmetric 2002 badge. That June, two Speed 8s finished first and second at Le Mans, 79 years to the day after Bentley’s first win there.
- 2015: Bentayga. Bentley’s first SUV and its fourth model line.
Bentley sits inside the Volkswagen Group today, while its old partner Rolls-Royce went its own way in 1998 and now belongs to BMW. For more on how winged badges and the like come together, see how car logos are designed.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Bentley logo mean?
According to Bentley, the B stands for founder W.O. Bentley and the wings were chosen in 1919 to represent the exhilaration of motion, possibly with a nod to his work on fighter-plane engines in the First World War.
Who owns Bentley?
Bentley Motors has been part of the Volkswagen Group since 1998, ending 67 years under Rolls-Royce. Audi has held management responsibility for the brand since 1 March 2021. The cars are still built in Crewe, England.
Why are the feathers on the Bentley wings uneven?
The original artist, F. Gordon Crosby, gave each wing a different number of feathers to make the emblem unique and harder to copy. The 2002 version revived the idea with ten feathers on the left and eleven on the right.
When did Bentley change its logo?
The latest version was unveiled on 1 July 2025. Bentley counts it as the fifth iteration, after the 1919 original, the symmetrical 1931 badge, a 1990s revision and the asymmetric 2002 design.
Who designed the new Bentley logo?
It was designed in house at Crewe. Director of Design Robin Page led the project, and the winning concept was proposed by Young Nam of Bentley’s Interior Design team.
Ten feathers left, eleven right: the Bentley record
- Founded
- 1919
- Founder
- Walter Owen (W.O.) Bentley
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Headquarters
- Crewe, United Kingdom
- Parent company
- Volkswagen Group
- Current emblem
- A B flanked by two feathered wings (the Winged B), redesigned in 2025 with sharper wings and a jewel-like B
- Known for
- Luxury grand tourers, Le Mans wins and the Bentley Boys
- Website
- Official website ↗
