Aston Martin Lagonda will come

The global financial crisis forced the British brand to slow development of its hulking SUV but the project will still go ahead.

Aston showed the Lagonda as a concept car at the beginning of 2009 and has an agreement with Mercedes-Benz for use of its GL four-wheel drive platform, which is the building block for what the company describes as 'the luxury car of the future'.

"It will come, but it will come when the time is right," says the head of Aston Martin, Ulrich Bez. "At the moment we are not under a rush. The economy in 2008 and 2009 did not allow us to press this revival forward."

Bez still believes the Lagonda can lead a new direction for prestige cars in countries, such as Russia and China, where they must be rugged as well as luxurious. He makes no apologies for its wild design, or applying a Lagonda badge to a vehicle that is so far from the brand's history, because he believes it is the right package for changing times.

"We have an agreement about using the GL platform for Lagonda, which again is a luxurious car. And very usable in an environment which is not as developed as London city or Sydney. I personally think the GL platform is a very good structure for such a car." Bez sees a growing demand for all sorts of luxury cars because of the growth in global wealth. "We see a very clear growth in wealth in the world. We can expect a big demand for individualisation. People want to be different.

"This is the human nature. In a free world it is a very personalised world. This why cars like ours, which are very exclusive, are still successful." He believes Aston will continue to grow despite operating in a very small area of the car business. "It's a little bit, I would compare, with the watch business. At some stage it was thought that technology would overcome the watch business, but fortunately we still build mechanical watches in the way we have done in the past," Bez says. "It is not overcome by electronics. We will see a similar demand in cars. "A car in the mass market will become more anonymous, and less undesrtood, because it's such a dense and complicated package. We will be the jewellers of the transport world and the car."