– Ansar Ali joins Bentley from McLaren Special Operations as Director of Mulliner and Motorsport.
– Paul Williams becomes CTO of Mulliner and Bob Martin becomes COO.
– The reorganization followed record demand for personal services that has quintupled over the past five years.
(Crewe, January 13, 2023) Bentley Motors today announced the appointment of Ansar Ali as the new Director of Mulliner and Motorsport, reporting directly to Adrian Hallmark, Chairman and CEO. Ali will lead Mulliner’s reorganized business as demand for customer personalization hits record levels.
Ali, who has over 30 years of automotive industry experience, joined McLaren Special Operations where he was General Manager. Prior to that, Ali held senior positions at Ford, Lotus, Caterham and co-founded Zenos Cars.
Ali’s dual responsibilities at Bentley span motorsport activities, working closely with currently competing GT3 racing teams and focusing on Bentley’s personal contract division, Mulliner, the world’s oldest coachbuilder, which now has three different classifications. Classics, collections and bus assembly. Adrian Hallmark said of Ali’s appointment:
“Mulliner represents the very pinnacle of automotive design and expertise and Ansar joins at a time when we are experiencing record levels of demand across our features, collections, coachbuilt and classics possibilities. Ansar’s considerable industry experience, particularly leading low-volume, highly bespoke customer-led divisions will offer valuable insights that will reinforce Mulliner as the leading personal commissioning division and generate significant contributions to the wider Bentley business.”
Ali will lead the custom division of the refurbished Mulliner, with Paul Williams becoming chief technical officer, who has held multiple management positions during his 15-year career at Bentley, and Bob Martin, a former director. final assembly manager at Bentley, becoming chief executive officer. All positions take effect immediately.
Mulliner has been producing custom bodywork and cabins since 1923, and today, finely crafted, custom cars are handcrafted to exude luxury, performance, exclusivity and individuality. . Mulliner’s portfolio includes body cars like the Batur, heritage limited editions including the Blower, and a plethora of unique and impressive projects for customers.
High customer demand for bespoke services, reaching record numbers in 2022, has helped propel Bentley to record sales for the third year in a row, posting 15,174 sales at the start of the week in 2022, an increase of 4% compared to 2021.