Bentley drops a new badge, with a concept car to follow

Bentley has updated its badge, the fifth iteration of the “Winged B” in the British luxury brand’s 106-year history.

Latching onto the minimalist trend sweeping the motor industry, the redesigned emblem is simpler and less ornate. The prominent B at the centre flanked by a pair of feathered wings remains, but the wings have a sharper and more dramatic shape  more reminiscent of the angled wings of a Peregrine Falcon, says Bentley. The lower feathers underneath the B have been removed for a visually cleaner shape.      

The new badge will adorn a new concept car to be revealed on July 8, which will herald the start of a new Bentley design language. The as-yet-unseen concept will not reach production but will give a hint of Bentley’s future styling direction.

It coincides with the opening of a new design studio at Bentley’s headquarters in Crewe, England.

The Bentley badge has an interesting history. The original Winged B was created in 1919 by F Gordon Crosby, a famous motoring artist of the pre-war years.

He created the Bentley “B” inside a pair of wings to represent the exhilaration of motion, and perhaps also a reference to company founder WO Bentley’s background as a designer of engines for fighter planes in World War 1. Crosby gave each wing a different number of feathers to make it unique and to try discourage fraudulent imitations.

When Bentley was acquired by Rolls-Royce in 1931, a symmetrical new emblem was created with 10 feathers on each side. It was the longest-standing version of the badge and was revamped only in 1996 when, as a nod to Crosby, the emblem became more ornate.

When Bentley passed into Volkswagen Group ownership in 1998 the emblem was redesigned again in preparation for the first Continental GT, launched in 2002. The new Winged B honoured the 1919 original by reverting to an asymmetric design, with 10 feathers to the left an 11 to the right.

The new 2025 design, still asymmetrical, is the biggest change to the badge in more than a century of history. The jewel has been redesigned to capture the high-quality details seen in luxury watch design, including a bevelled glass edge and a 3D depth with the “B” below the surface.