Ford’s Premier Automotive Group sports car maker Aston Martin will eventually close its two current English factories and shift production and around 600 staff to a new plant at the former British Leyland research and development centre at Gaydon in Warwickshire, the Financial Times said.
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The FT said that the maker of traditional, hand-built sports cars will move DB7 and Vanquish production to a new Gaydon factory where it will also build a new entry-level model.
Chief executive Ulrich Bez told the FT that Aston Martin management had already begun to discuss the move with workers at Newport Pagnell, near Milton Keynes, and Bloxham, outside Banbury, in Oxfordshire.
“We have a vision to move the manufacturing of all cars to Gaydon over time,” Bez told the FT. “We will stop car assembly in the mid to long term at the current sites.”
The newspaper said work had already begun on a new assembly line for Aston Martin at Gaydon which is now home to Land Rover’s head office and R&D centre.
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By GlobalDataBez would not tell the FT the cost of the move which will see the end of Aston Martin manufacturing in Newport Pagnell after 50 years.
The FT said that Newport Pagnell will continue to service and repair cars while Bloxham could become a motor sport development centre.
Bez insisted that the production move, due to be completed by 2007-8, was not a cost-cutting measure, the FT said, and would not dilute Aston Martin’s prestigious brand heritage. Instead it would result in rapid production expansion with output more than tripling to about 5,000 cars a year by mid-decade, the newspaper added.
The FT said that most of the volume gain would come from the new car, code-named AM305, which was expected to account for 60 percent of Aston Martin’s future volumes.
Bez told the newspaper that Aston Martin also hoped to use the model for a return to motor racing after an absence of more than 40 years.
Aston Martin is also planning a big increase in international sales outlets, the FT said, and is projecting growth from 80 to 140 in 35 different countries by the end of 2004.
The FT said that while Aston Martin is the smallest volume brand within Ford, former BMW and Porsche executive Bez plans on delivering “high single-digit” profit margins.
In 2000 Aston Martin made an operating profit of £7.43m ($US10.63m) on sales of £82.9m, the newspaper added.
Last month, just-auto reported that all of the UK-based Premier Automotive Group brands would be substantially consolidated at Gaydon, which Ford acquired when it bought Land Rover.
Land Rover chief Bob Dover told just-auto then that he expected that Gaydon would become the manufacturing base for Aston Martin.
Jaguar R&D would not however move to Gaydon, creating a PAG campus similar to the one in Irvine, California, because too much was now invested in Castle Bromwich [Birmingham, where the S-type is made] and Witley [Coventry, the main Jaguar R&D centre].
However, Dover said any substantial new investment in R&D equipment – new dynamometer testers or a wind tunnel – would be made only at Gaydon, the former RAF bomber airfield which became British Leyland’s main development facility in the 1970s.
Ownership passed to BMW when it bought Rover in 1996 and a huge, ultra-modern design centre was opened on the campus during the German company’s tenure.
Ford acquired Gaydon in October 2000 when it bought Land Rover and has been steadily moving as much PAG development, testing – and now manufacturing – work there as possible.
Ford also acquired the adjacent Heritage Motor Centre museum and conference centre – home to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust classic car collection – when it bought Gaydon.
