Aston Martin

It scorches from 0-60mph in less than four seconds, its batteries can be charged in ten minutes and you can imagine James Bond sitting behind the wheel. But will the über-stylish electric Lightning car ever make money? Earlier this year, entrepreneur Iain Sanderson unveiled the Lightning Car at the British International Motor Show. The 48-year-old Sanderson is a marketer, not a motorhead. He made his bucks through marketing agency Dynamo, which he set up in 1990 and sold a decade later for £20m. Rather than opting for retirement, Sanderson set up London-based Contact Group, which has six different marketing agencies under its wing and pulls in sales of £12m. So what on earth made this millionaire marketing guru develop a battery-powered sports car? Two years ago, Sanderson bumped into his old friend Arthur Wolstenholme, long-time maker of the Ronart series […]

Consortium leader Dave Richards is quashing speculation that luxury sports car maker Aston Martin is for sale. “The company is not for sale,” Richards insisted during the Nurburgring 24-hour race last weekend, where Aston’s N24 Vantages finished 1-2-3 in their class. “This speculation is only there because we are talking to people all the time about engines,” Richards said. “But we are always talking to people, and it doesn’t mean we’re for sale.” Richard led a partnership that included two Middle East investment firms to take over Aston Martin from Ford Motor Co. last year. Since then rumors have circulated that the Prodrive boss and his investors would be happy to turn a quick dollar. But Richards’ denial is his most emphatic statement yet about Aston’s long-term future. The company’s future engine supply is less certain, though. Aston’s V8s are […]

Aston Martin has revealed more shots of its new Vantage GT2. The latest Aston racer was first shown as sketches in January. It also was seen at a test at the Paul Ricard circuit in southern France in March. The Vantage GT2 fills out Aston Martin’s GT lineup, giving it a competitor in each category. Three teams have signed up to drive the Vantage GT2: James Watt Automotive, Drayson-Barwell and Gigawave. The car will make its race debut in the first round of the Le Mans Series on April 5 at Barcelona, Spain. The Vantage GT2 can run on standard fuel or E85 ethanol. It’s based on the V8-powered Vantage road car. Source: AutoWeek

A nice write up on the Aston Martin DBS over at Search Chicago Autos. Dan Jedlicka starts out by saying, “Some folks may consider the new $265,000 Aston Martin DBS too gorgeous to drive because it looks more like a million bucks. But the shapely, mechanically advanced DBS coupe is designed to be driven daily, even if it can hit 191 mph with its hand-assembled 510-horsepower V-12 engine, said John Walton, vice president and general manager of Aston Martin North America at a recent media preview of the DBS here.” Read more on the Seach Chicago Autos site.

An entry list of 27 cars has been revealed for the 2008 Avon Tyres British GT Championship featuring 19 cars in GT3 and eight in the new GT4 class. Defending champions RPM will run two cars in the GT3 class and also expand into GT4 with a further three cars. Former BTCC race-winner Paul O’Neill will partner Steve Clark in the #1 entry while Nick Foster will be partnered by experienced youngster Oliver Bryant in the sister car. In GT4, the team will run three Ginetta G50s for the pairings of Steve Tandy/Phil Bailey, Joe Osbourne/Michael Broadhurst and Chris Cooke/James Harrison.

The Telegraph is reporting that Ulrich Bez has not just been turning around legendary car maker Aston Martin, but he has been leading them to profit. To quote the Telegraph, “Are profits still growing? Aston Martin has not yet published its 2007 financial results but Bez says: ‘Usually when there is a change of ownership you can say that a company will go through a difficult time for a year or two. We have not seen any of that. We have not lost any of the motivation that we had under Ford where we were a very enthusiastic team. We have been profitable since the last quarter of 2005 and we have increased that profitability year on year.’”

It’s been twenty years since Aston Martin, deeply in debt and little more than an automotive anachronism, was swallowed up by Ford empire. Say what you will about Ford’s other British luxury marques, the past two decades have been good ones for Aston. When Ford acquired the brand, in 1987, Aston sales plunged to as little as 42 cars a year and at one point, keeping the assembly line rolling depended on the sale of a single car to a wealthy — and quite drunk — British aristocrat. These days, Aston’s aspirations are positively mass-market, with an array of new products promising to push volume up near 10,000 cars a year, and the company well in the black for the first time in its 93-year history. That’ll be good news for the new owners, David Richards, CEO of racing’s Prodrive […]

Almost three quarters of UK consumers would buy British if given a £100,000 budget to spend on a new car, according to new research from online insurance company swiftcover.com. Sweeping aside their German and Italian rivals, British marques emerge as unanimous favorites amongst UK car buyers, with 69 per cent claiming they would opt for a British brand if they had the money to do so. Topping the ‘Dream Car’ list with almost a quarter of the votes is Aston Martin (24%), followed by Range Rover (19%), Bentley (16%) and Rolls Royce (10%). German and Italian luxury marques faired badly by comparison – with just one per cent opting for a Lamborghini, 9 per cent for a Ferrari, 9 per cent for a Porsche and 2 per cent for a Maserati. The top ten swiftcover.com “Dream Cars” for 2008 are: […]

Aston Martin could co-operate with Daimler AG’s Mercedes on ventures ranging from engines to new models, the British luxury carmaker’s majority shareholder, Kuwait’s Investment Dar, said on Tuesday. Adham Charanoglu, business development manager for Investment Dar, which bought Aston Martin from Ford Motor Company last March, said it had held talks with Mercedes and with LVMH’s Louis Vuitton and PPR’s Gucci on branded merchandising. Charanoglu told the Reuters Islamic Finance Summit that plans to overhaul Aston Martin merchandising had yet to be finished but included opening new centers dedicated to the marquee — made famous by James Bond — in the UK, the Gulf and possibly the U.S. Any brand development would need to be at the top end of the luxury market, with opportunities stretching from apparel, owners’ events and track racing to real estate, Charanoglu said, adding Aston […]