How Wood Goes From a Tree to the Inside of a Bentley
Bentley’s beautiful wood veneer is the result of a lengthy sourcing and treatment process.
Wood veneer—particularly the real stuff—isn’t as common in cars as it used to be, but it’s still a big, flashy part of Bentley’s design portfolio. During a week spent in the lovely 2024 Bentley Continental GT Edition 8, we couldn't take our eyes off the Crown Cut Walnut detailing draped across its doors and down the dash and center console.
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Wood is one of those materials that withstands shifts in fashion trends and will always class up a joint. It will never go out of style, so if you want your interior to keep on looking timeless—as we suspect most Bentley owners do—it's a great option to choose.
There’s plenty of fake—or “imitation”—veneer out there, but Bentley’s is the real deal. So, how exactly does the wood get from a tree to the inside of one of its cars?
Where It’s Sourced
The Bentley wood portfolio is primarily made up of walnut, oak, and koa. (There used to be cherry, too, though that’s not on the current production range.) These woods are chosen for their natural beauty, but also for their ability to withstand the massive swings in environmental conditions that a car goes through.
Crown Cut Walnut, as seen in the 2024 Bentley Continental GT Edition 8.
“They have to be quite UV stable because they’re going to be exposed to extremes of temperature and sunlight,” Richard Bell, Bentley’s functional manager of manufacturing and overseer for the Bentley Wood Shop, told MotorTrend in a recent interview. Bell’s been with Bentley for 13 years; 11 of them have been spent in the Wood Shop.
Should a customer want a variety of wood that isn’t part of the tried-and-true offerings, Bell said the company would entertain the request, but it’d be a longer conversation with Mulliner, Bentley’s in-house customization team. The customer “would have to understand there would be probably a disclaimer saying we couldn't guarantee in the future how the wood would mature and what it would look like,” he explained. “It would be at their own risk to have such an individual feature.”
Regardless, all the wood Bentley uses is very carefully sourced. “Woods [are] sourced to Forestry Stewardship Commission standards,” Bell said. “Nothing in the veneer range is sourced from Africa or South America. We avoid regions around the world where we can't agree where [the wood] is coming from or if it's been replanted.” Deforestation is a concern, too, so that’s another reason to be airtight with sourcing.
Most of the wood, in fact, comes from here in the States. Burl walnut is from California and Crown Cut Walnut comes from North America’s black walnut trees. “We need to ensure [the wood is of] ethical origins, Bell said. “Walnut is a byproduct of the walnut industry, so the farmer is actually digging that tree up when it stops producing the nut. It's at that stage Bentley uses the veneer.”
Liquidamber (or sweetgum) is from the gum tree in Mississippi, and vavona is from the California redwood. “Vavona is a growth that forms on the trunk of the [redwood] tree,” Bell said. “It isn't the trunk itself, and it has to fall naturally. But because of the size of the tree when it falls, it's naturally abundant.”
Between six and eight times a year, someone from Bentley’s production arm—which is to say, Bell’s team—goes out into the world to source veneer. This person knows everything the team needs, from the size of veneer required for each model to quality, grain structure, and color. “Also,” Bell added, “because it's a natural product, you have to work with natural defects, such as knots.”
Patterns repeat through every bundle of veneer, and every bundle encompasses 24 leaves. The Bentley production person handles every single bundle to make sure the leaves are all up to snuff.
“Bentley buy[s] the top 5 percent of veneer that's [in the world],” Bell said.
How It’s Treated
With a Bentley veneer, we’re talking about a bit of wood that’s less than a millimeter in thickness. “The Western standard for veneer is 0.6 millimeters, plus or minus 0.05 of a millimeter,” Bell clarified. As for how much is needed overall per car, “It depends on the options,” he continued. “The customer could have veneer door pads, veneer champagne tables. There's a big range.”
However, Bell said somewhere between five and 10 square meters (approximately 16 to 33 square feet) “would cover it.”
Before a new finish is introduced, it goes through a series of tests. There are general Volkswagen Group tests, as well as specialized Bentley ones, to replicate the highs and lows of extreme temperature. Think of the wood being put in a giant oven or freezer.
“We also put veneers into what we call a ‘sunshine car,’” Bell said. “It's where we send the car out to Arizona, and it sits in high heat for a period.” That period can last for up to two years, just so the team can really see what happens.
Then there’s treating the wood.
“Some woods go into the car in a completely natural state,” Bell said. “Eucalyptus is treated with ammonia that makes it darker, but that's more for visual aesthetics. Same with the gum tree that goes through a heat-treating process. Once it comes into the factory, the main things are, it's kept dry and flat—the conditions we need pre-production.”
Each variety of veneer gets a different approach to ensure it’s free of defects. But because the veneer is so thin, it can be brittle and easy to crack. The Bentley team applies moisture, paying special attention to the apertures where the air vents will eventually fit. “We're stressing the wood quite a lot in those areas, so we've got to apply moisture to it,” Bell said. “We do that with demineralized water by either spraying or brushing it.”
Once the team gets a press part, they sand it down and then it’s time for the lacquer process. The veneer must be cleaned to the point where it’s completely dust- and contaminant-free, and a polyurethane sealer goes onto it. Not only does the sealer act as a seal, it’s also a bonding agent with the polyester lacquer that goes on next. Back to the sander the piece goes after that, followed by polishing with different compounds and cotton buffing wheels for a high-gloss finish. In the end, all the lacquer used can account for an extra 0.6 to 0.8 millimeters on top of the wood.
Of course, Bentley doesn't just slap the veneer onto the car and call it a day. All the curvy and complex shapes of the console, dash, and doors are formed by an aluminum substrate that the wood is wrapped over. Think of it as lasagna: There’s the aluminum substrate, which gives everything its shape, and on top of that goes a laminate pack that, through a combination of heat, time, and pressure, glues the veneer to the metal and keeps it from curling.
There’s not one answer as to how long a process such as this takes, as there are a ton of variables. “It depends on model, parts, [and] lacquer finish,” Bell said. Currently, Bentley offers two lacquer finishes: polyester high-gloss and open pore. Open pore is a sprayed finish, with tactile and visible textures. The high-gloss finish is the more popular one, however.
Ballpark, though? Bell estimates the open-pore process to take between four and five hours, and the high-gloss to take between eight and 10 hours, both spread over the course of about three weeks.
Putting It in the Car
Now knowing what exactly goes into the veneer, you take on a new appreciation when you look inside a Bentley. Even though the pieces are separated across different parts of the car, all the grain lines up perfectly. It’s striking attention to detail.
“It's a big consideration for us in the factory,” Bell said. “The grain should flow down the door, across the dash, and down the other door. It should because the parts meet end to end, [so] the grain needs to meet end to end as well. The wood on those panels is really important, because if you get a step condition where the grain doesn't meet end to end, it looks terrible.”
What happens if something gets damaged during production?
“We've got a veneer store at Crewe,” Bell said. “There's about two to three months’ worth of stock. When a car goes into production, I allocate a number of spare leaves, so if there was damage in production, I could replace a panel. Every bundle of veneer, even if it comes from the same tree, is slightly different, so it's unique to that customer and their car. It's really important we've got spare veneer leaves whilst the car is being built so we can replace like for like.”
There is not, however, room in Bentley’s wood vault for customer cars that have gone out into the world. If someone needed something fixed, Bentley can replace the entire wood set for them so it could guarantee color-matching, fade, et cetera.
“Woods change as exposed to UV. They age,” Bell said. “A fresh bit of walnut veneer wouldn't match a three-year-old piece of walnut veneer. So, the customer would have a choice: They could either accept the difference in coloring and grain structure, because it would be from a different tree, or they could choose to replace the whole interior.”
Obviously, prices vary for a job like this. It’s based on the veneer species and how much wood needs replacing. Bell wouldn’t give us a number, so use your imagination. And then add another zero or two to the end of that figure.
But think about what goes into it. A Bentley may or may not be your cup of tea, but you have to respect the veneer process. It just goes to show that if your favorite elective in high school was wood shop, miraculously, there’s a team doing exactly that at Bentley.
I got into cars the way most people do: my dad. Since I was little, it was always something we’d talk about and I think he was stoked to have his kid share his interest. He’d buy me the books, magazines, calendars, and diecast models—everything he could do to encourage a young enthusiast. Eventually, I went to school and got to the point where people start asking you what you want to do with your life. Seeing as cars are what I love and writing is what I enjoy doing, combining the two was the logical next step. This dream job is the only one I’ve ever wanted. Since then, I’ve worked at Road & Track, Jalopnik, Business Insider, The Drive, and now MotorTrend, and made appearances on Jay Leno’s Garage, Good Morning America, The Smoking Tire Podcast, Fusion’s Car vs. America, the Ask a Clean Person podcast, and MotorTrend’s Shift Talkers. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, cooking, and watching the Fast & Furious movies on repeat. Tokyo Drift is the best one.
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