Aston Martin News

Just in case a Lamborghini Aventador and Ferrari FF weren’t enough, Dubai Police has gone out and recruited a handful of new supercars for its fleet including a rare Aston Martin One-77. Yes, one of the bespoke Aston Martin supercars, of which only 77 were ever built, will be used for police duties in the Gulf state and will be joined by a Bentley Continental GT and Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. The new police cars were presented at the Dubai Trade Centre recently, where these images were taken. Like the previous Aventador and FF supercars Dubai Police enlisted, the trio of new recruits will be used primarily as a deterrent for anyone considering breaking the speed limit, particular those owners of high-powered exotics. The cars will also be used in popular tourist areas to help promote Dubai. In fact, their first appearance was at a travel exposition. The One-77 is now the rarest and most expensive vehicle in the Dubai Police fleet and was no doubt donated by one of Dubai’s wealthy residents. All examples of the car are sold and Aston Martin goes to great lengths to ensure they don’t turn up on the open market, so it's unlikely the car was actually bought by Dubai Police.  The One-77 is also the most powerful car in the fleet, with its 7.3-liter V-12 engine delivering 560kW and 750Nm. The next most powerful car in the fleet is the Aventador, which rates at 515kW. At the time of its launch, the going price on a One-77 was 1.15 million pounds, which at today’s exchange rate is approximately AU$1.7 million. We wonder what's next, a Bugatti Veyron? www.motorauthority.com

A $250 million injection has saved 100-year-old iconic independent sports-car maker Aston Martin but brought it closer to an alliance with Mercedes-Benz. Aston Martin chairman, and part-owner, David Richards announced that UK-based capital equity company Investindustrial bought 37.5 per cent of the carmaker for $227 million. Cash-rich Investindustrial recently sold its stake in Ducati to Audi for $1.1 billion. The injection gives cash for Aston Martin's plan to invest in new technologies and models over the next five years. But it also brings the company closer to an alliance with Mercedes-Benz. No deal is done between the two but Aston Martin is likely to replace its Ford-based V12 engine line with a similar engine from Mercedes' AMG division. AMG already sells its engines to other car makers including Pagani. Mercedes' boss Dr Dieter Zetsche this year said: “If a company that sells a few thousand vehicles wants to talk then we might do that, I am open to it.” The deal may not just include engines. Aston Martin, which except for its Toyota-cloned Cygnet city car has no low-emission vehicles, must reduce its fleet emission levels. Its current V12 engine will need significant work to meet Euro-6 standards planned for introduction in September next year. It is possible AMG may also supply V8 engines to Aston. Aston Martin is the only independent global luxury-car brand and needs cash or an alliance to develop technologies to improve its product's fuel efficiency and emission levels. Rival BMW plans to invest more than $1.5 billion this year to improve the efficiency of its engines and bring its electric i-Series cars on to the market. Investindustrial has a long history and common ground with Mercedes. The pair were involved in marketing Ducati's products. Investindustrial bought the 37.5 per cent share from one of Aston Martin's biggest stakeholders, Kuwaiti-based Investment Dar, which bought the car company from Ford in 2007 for about $740 million. When put to market earlier this year, the highest bid for the Aston share was received by Indian carmaker Mahindra and Mahindra. But though the Indian company offered more money, Investment Dar went with Investindustrial because its deal included a technical partnership with Mercedes-Benz. Aston Martin is now owned by partners Investindustrial, Adeem Investment and Investment Dar which retains a share. Concurrent with the change in ownership of the company that turns 100 this year, long-serving Aston Martin CEO Ulrich Bez is expected to step down from the top executive job and seek a more ambassadorial position. He turns 70 in November.  

According to a report from CarBuzz, Aston Martin is saying goodbye to the V12 Vantage. This seems like very sad news, as the twelve-cylinder twitch machine remains ones of the most exciting vehicles in the AM lineup in... well, forever. It's a brutish beast that combines tons of power, a V12 engine note, a manual gearbox, and rear-wheel drive. This is the ultimate recipe for high-level hooning. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that we'd be rather upset if it does wind up disappearing after just four short years. To confirm this, we reached out to PR and Brand Communication Manager Matthew Clarke. His response? "The current generation is indeed now done". Read between the lines people. That is PR speak for 'stay tuned because the next generation must be around the bend'. This makes us happy because, if the new Vanquish is any indication, we should be in for something even more special. We know that Aston Martin needs someone to step in and provide a bit of a cash infusion to smooth things out, but the cars are finally there in terms of quality and a V12 Vantage built with this improved internal tech will be a truly wonderful machine. www.motorauthority.com  

While Aston Martin is among the most storied British sports car brands, it's had its share of ups and downs over the decades. Now it appears that the man who helped return Aston Martin to prominence and give it a role as a global player is about to retire. Dr. Ulrich Bez, who has led the brand since 2000, will step down and take a more "ambassadorial" role, according to Autocar. Bez was appointed as CEO of Aston Martin under Ford ownership, and stayed on even after Ford spun it out to private investors in 2007. On his watch, Aston Martin sales rose from a few hundred each year to thousands. And Aston Martins continued in perhaps their best-known public role: conveying James Bond, Agent 007, on his exploits. Under Bez, the company also moved from its traditional home, Newport Pagnell, to new and more modern facilities in Gaydon. And he was considered to be the father of the 1994 Aston Martin DB7, its first new volume car after some years of scattered product development. That model, built from 1994 through 2004, sold more than any other Aston in history--more than 7,000 altogether, in coupe and convertible models. The DB7 effectively brought the company back into contention among buyers of pricey, high-performance sports cars. According to the report, Bez will retire this summer sometime after a successor has been announced, to provide for a smooth transition. www.motorauthority.com  

Aston Martin and Investindustrial have finalised a deal first announced in December that will see a 35 per cent stake in the cartomaker sold to the European private equity group.

Doting parents no longer need to wait until graduation to give their kids some prestige wheels. Aston Martin has designed a luxury pram that for a mere £2,000 – or just a tad under $3000 – will carry their newborn in high-end style.Developed in tandem with Silver Cross – a British maker of baby carriages since 1877 – the Aston Martin Edition pram has everything the upper-class child could want.For a start, the wheels are based on those of the limited edition Aston Martin One-77, which retails for £1.2 million in Britain but would likely be closer to $3m here, if any of the 77 built had made it to Australia. The pram will also be a limited edition, with just 800 being made available exclusively from Harrods in April, each fitted with an engraved brushed chrome plaque and arriving with a certificate of authenticity.The Aston Martin pram also uses the same upholstery leather and suede as the cars, while there’ll be no baby bumps with a special air-ride suspension system. And with Aston Martin’s renowned build quality, you can bet on the only rattles being the ones in the bubs’ hands.Aston Martin hasn’t detailed whether there will be any additional accessories that can be optioned, but we think there’s scope for a few superspy features.Concealed machine guns might clear the checkout queue when mum’s in a hurry, and a spray of tyre-piercing tacks would slow down rivals for the last vacant table at coffee shops. Parents might pray some days for an ejector seat that would fire a tantrum-thrower out of the postcode – or perhaps they could take some inspiration from that other master spy, Maxwell Smart, and turn the hood into a cone of silence. Karla Pincott on Google+ 

The Aston Martin Rapide S is a GT car that's been redesigned and re-engineered to reassert its position at the top of the GT car tree.Rapide S replaces the outgoing Aston Martin Rapide and is now more refined thanks to a range of additions to the four-seater's interior. There's an imposing new ‘face’ featuring a striking new grille. The front and rear ends have been revised for improved aerodynamics and aesthetics.The visual appeal of the Aston Martin Rapide S is matched by a much more powerful and yet more efficient engine. Changes under the new Rapide's skin are comprehensive, with a version of the new AM11 naturally-aspirated 6.0-litre V12 powerplant.Power jumps significantly from the previous model - by 17 per cent 410kW at 6750rpm. Peak torque increases, too, up from 600Nm to 620Nm at 5000rpm. As a result performance is boosted -- with the 0-100km/h sprint now passing in 4.9 seconds.The naturally aspirated V12 boasts race car technology developments derived directly from Aston Martin Racing. These include lighter, hollow, cam shafts and computer cut combustion chambers.Dual variable camshaft timing, knock sensing, even the fully catalysed stainless steel exhaust system are all engineering advances developed to preserve the V12's position as a mainstay of the Aston Martin range. Fuel economy averages 14.1-litres/100km. Carefully conceived engineering changes give Rapide sharper agility and quicker responses to driver input. Aston Martin's hi-tech Adaptive Damping System (ADS) is fitted offering three settings: ‘Normal’, ‘Sport’ and ‘Track’. The new car boasts a host of new luxury- or sports-orientated options, allowing buyers to more precisely tailor the car to their specific style. 

When it comes to movie cars, few are more famous than the Aston Martin DB5 driven by James Bond in Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and Skyfall. In total, four cars were reportedly built for filming and promotion of the Bond movies. Two were constructed for the filming of Goldfinger, but Wikipedia advises that one of these DB5s was stolen from its owners in Florida in 1997. The surviving Goldfinger movie car was sold at an RM Auction event in 2010 for the rather impressive sum of $4.1 million. While it’s hard to price such an iconic car, its value was likely helped by the fact that it was driven by Sean Connery in both Goldfinger and Thunderball. The two cars remaining were used to promote the Bond franchise, but never appeared onscreen. One, a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, resides in the collection of the Louwman Museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The final remaining James Bond DB5, reportedly a 1965 model, is now being offered for sale by Aston Martin specialist Richard Stewart Williams, Limited. Equipped with the standard array of gadgets like a nail dispenser, oil spray nozzles, bulletproof shield and rotating number plates, it’s the perfect addition to anyone’s Aston Martin collection. The Deccan Herald reports that the car was also used to promote Thunderball, and that the asking price is set at 3 million pounds ($4.5 million AUD). That seems a bit ambitious to us, given the fact that the actual DB5 used in the filming of Goldfinger sold for over half a million dollars less. That said, the universal truth of collector cars is this: their value is ultimately set by a determined buyer. While we suppose RS Williams will entertain offers for the car, it knows that finding a buyer willing to pay that much is just a matter of time. www.motorauthority.com  

   

A week after denying it was for sale, Aston Martin has found itself in a bidding war between Indian and Italian buyers. The 98-year-old British brand made famous by the James Bond films was bought by Ford in 1994 and sold to a Kuwaiti investment firm in 2007. But as with its previous owners, the Kuwaitis haven’t been able to make Aston Martin fly, with an aging line-up and unadventurous design.  The Reuters news agency reported overnight that Italian private equity fund Investindustrial reached a agreement last Thursday with the owner, Kuwaiti investment house Investment Dar, but Indian’s Mahindra made a higher offer on Friday, leaving the fate of the company hanging in the balance. "Talks are continuing," Reuters quoted a source as saying. The bidders are reportedly offering up to $400 million for a 50 per cent stake in the company; Ford sold the brand outright in 2007 for $848 million. The same source said manufacturing would stay at Gaydon, England under the Italian proposal. Investindustrial, owned by Italy's Bonomi family, bought Italian motorcycle maker Ducati in 2006 and then sold it for about 860 million Euros last April to Volkswagen's Audi brand. Mahindra is the world number one tractor maker. It's also India’s largest SUV manufacturer and has a controlling stake in South Korean car maker Ssangyong. Another Indian motor company, Tata Motor, bought British luxury manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover in 2008.