5. 1.74 Miles Of Thread In A Continental GT
Each example of Bentley’s new luxury coupe contains nearly 2 miles of thread and requires nine Northern European bull hides. The person preparing each leather panel places his or her initials on the reverse side, so it’s possible to know who’s responsible for selecting it.
4. 120 People On The Sewing Team
The upholstery team in Crewe, England, includes 120 tailors for sewing and embroidering the upholstery. Some of them have worked at the plant for as long as 40 years.
3. Specific Group Handles Mulliner Personalization Requests
Mulliner is Bentley’s personalisation division, and a group of specialist tailors take care of these requests. The intricate designs can include as many as 500,000 individual stitches and take several days to complete.
2. Precise Planning Is Necessary
When trimming the hides, the upholstery team has to account for the fact that such complicated sewing causes the leather panels to shrink. For example, the complex embroidery causes the piece for the door panel to shrink by 12 percent.
1. Complexity Of The Diamond-In-Diamond Design
The Continental GT’s cabin features what Bentley calls a diamond-in-diamond motif that mixes stitching and embroidery. Machines perform the 712 stitches for each inner diamond. To complete the total interior, the company requires seven hours and 300,000 stitches.