Jessica Sawyer made several assumptions when she pulled up to the 5 Star Wash and Shine Car Wash in Manchester, England. The biggest assumption was that they knew what they were doing.
When she handed the keys of her $122,000 soft-top convertible Bentley to someone at the car wash she figured he must work there. She assumed he surely knew how to drive. She left presuming she’d return in an hour to pick up her sparking clean car. Imagine her surprise when 15 minutes later, the police called her back to the car wash.
Apparently the man she handed the keys of her luxury car to didn’t know the brake pedal from the gas and drove through the front of the waiting area at the car wash. He also didn’t work at the car wash.
The body was totally wrecked in the accident, causing $73,000 in damage to the car and significant damage to the car wash as well. The best part? No one knows who crashed the car. The car wash denies it was an employee and he man who crashed the Bentley fled the scene. The insurance company is taking the car wash to court, but who’s to say they’re not the victims of one hurried driver’s assumptions?
Featured Gallery
REUTERS — Germany’s Volkswagen gave its ultra-luxury Bentley division the nod to build its first sport-utility vehicle, venturing beyond its specialty of sleek, growling road cars in a move that could unsettle automobile purists.
The new model, billed as the world’s most expensive SUV, will go on sale in 2016, VW said on Tuesday. The project will create over 1,000 jobs in the UK, Europe’s second-largest auto market, and require over $1.23 billion of investment over the next three years.
The automaker only released a sketch of the car. But Bentley showed off an SUV concept car, the Bentley EXP 9 F Concept, at the Geneva Auto Show in 2012. Click through for pictures of what the world’s most expensive SUV might look like:
Crewe, England-based Bentley aims to replicate the success that Porsche has had with the Cayenne SUV, which was launched over a decade ago and now accounts for half the sports-car maker’s global sales.
The push towards off-roaders is aimed at boosting profitability at Bentley, which accounted for no more than 1 percent of the VW group’s first-quarter earnings of $3.09 billion.
“SUVs continue to be in high demand and Porsche has shown that plush sport-utility vehicles have great potential,” said Frankfurt-based Equinet AG analyst Tim Schuldt.
But the Bentley SUV may face competition from VW stable mate Lamborghini, which recently won the backing of parent Audi to launch the Urus SUV in 2017, Maserati’s Jeep-based Kubang and Land Rover’s Range Rover Sport, analysts said.
The moves by Bentley and Lamborghini have dismayed some automobile fans, who fear that the push into four-by-fours betrays their history and will dilute the brands’ exclusivity.
Bentley is known for sleek models with a racing pedigree. Its redesigned Flying Spur has a 6-litre, 12-cylinder engine generating 616 horsepower and a top speed of 200 miles per hour.
It is targeting annual sales of between 3,000 and 4,000 SUVs priced at above 150,000 euros. The new model would be key to almost doubling Bentley’s worldwide deliveries to 15,000 autos by 2018.
The company has had extremely positive feedback on the SUV from customers in the past 16 months, VW said.
“This decision will ensure sustainable growth for the company,” said Bentley Chief Executive Wolfgang Schreiber.