2017 Bentley Mulsanne: The Production Process, By the Numbers

In our line of work, we tour a lot of factories, but very few are like this one in Crewe. Aside from tiny cottage industry operations, few manufacturers produce an entire car in one place, from body framing and painting to engine assembly to interior trim to final assembly. The body structure is steel, the front fenders and all panels that open are made of aluminum. The Mulsanne is reportedly the only car still built with a large hand-finished braze joint on the C-pillar where the roof panel meets the rear quarter. (Most roof panels were joined this way for decades.) It yields a milled-from-billet look to the body. At roughly 1,000 cars per year, automation tooling is pretty hard to amortize, so most of the few robots in use are multitaskers. Here’s a look at the Mulsanne production process by the numbers:

• 5,800—The number of spot welds joining the body structure together, roughly half of which are hand-applied
• 669—Number of self-piercing used to join the aluminum closure panels
• 600—Number of metal panels joined to form the body (12 in each front door, eight in each rear door, seven in the hood, four in each fender, etc.)
• 417—Number of feet of structural adhesive in the body, mostly hand-applied. There’s also 9 feet of “anti-flutter” non-structural noise-absorbing adhesive
• 101—Number of feet of MAG welding (there’s also 9.5 feet of aluminum MIG welding and 5.6 feet of MIG brazing)
• 554—Number of threaded studs welded to the body structure for attaching interior and other parts
• 8,468—The number of quality control checkpoints measured to assure dimensional accuracy of the body
• 1,512—Number of parts and subassemblies stocked in the “supermarket” serving the Mulsanne final assembly line
• 123—Number of minutes the Mulsanne spends in each of its 14 assembly stations
• 365—Number of hours required to build a Mulsanne, including wood, trim, paint, engine assembly, inspections, etc. (Bentaygas currently take 165 but will hit 140 later this year; Continentals and Flying Spurs run between 90 and 120)
• 840 million—Approximate investment in British pounds ($1.2 billion) in facilities upgrades to be spent over five years in Crewe for a new business, engineering, and design centers
• 17—Number of bull hides required to trim the typical interior, available in 24 standard colors
• 20—Percentage of Mulsannes that leave the factory with at least one Mulliner bespoke upgrade

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