Vantage vital for Aston Martin family, says CEO
Redesigned sports car marks ‘turnaround’ that gives English brand volume to pay the bills
Two weeks before Aston Martin unveiled the new Vantage last month, we caught up with Aston Martin chief executive Andy Palmer at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas to discuss the all-new sports car and its significance to the brand.
Q: Andy, just how significant is the new Vantage to Aston Martin?
A: Huge. I mean, this marks a turnaround — actually it’s more than a turnaround because we can assume that at one point we were pointing in the right direction — because we’re trying to make sure the balance sheet lives up to the brand, which it never has, really. We’ve turned the company into the black with the DB11, and the DB series is always going to be a ‘backbone’ of the company, but the Vantage gives us volume, relatively speaking. It pays the fixed costs of the company, and we’ve engineered that car, which I’ve been involved with from the start, to the right levels of quality, cost and delivery. And performance, obviously.
For most people, the Vantage is the most representative of the brand, and it’s the lowest-priced version we have. So, if you’re just moving into the Aston (Martin) family, it’s probably the one you’ll be looking at. It also gets most visibility because it’s the race car, so it’s really important to us.
The counter of that, of course — and this is my own genuine opinion — it’s the most beautiful car I’ve ever been involved in designing.
I am biased, yes, but I don’t say that tongue-in-cheek because I’ve been involved a lot of great cars during my 38 years in this business. But this one really is something very special.
You mention that the Vantage is the most “representative” of the brand. Do you believe this should be the case over, say, the flagship DB11?
The problem with representing a brand with DB is that, by its nature, it’s almost the “average car.” Almost. It’s doing a lot of things. It’s a performance car, it’s a long-journey car, and it’s an intercontinental missile, so it’s difficult to describe a brand by the product that sits as the centre. It’s important to have that spine, but you tend to define brands by the peripheries and where you push them.
There’s big talk of Aston Martin’s “Second Century Plan,” but perhaps you can tell us where the Vantage fits into that.
Part of what I’m trying to do with Aston Martin, rather than being essentially a DB company, is try and turn it into a house of brands. And when we look at the luxury market, what we see is several different clusters, from mid-engined sports cars to GTs, SUVs and luxury sedans. There are seven distinct clusters, and I’m trying to do a car in each of them.
“If you draw the mind map of focus and utility for example, DB, to some extent, sits smack in the middle of that map. And that’s really important, because it anchors the brand. Our more extreme cars will be anchored by the Vantage, and then as you go up, a little later in the plan, comes a mid-engined car, which is anchored by the Valkyrie and Formula One.
Did you say mid-engined sports cars?
Yes. I’m expecting that to come in the early 2020s.
It’s part of the reason that we’ve done the Valkyrie — to give, if you will, legitimacy to that range. You can’t just throw a car in there and expect everyone to go, “Wow, it’s an Aston.”
Aston Martin, I’m sure, will build a great mid-engined car, but we have to prove ourselves, and the Valkyrie is a very important part of that. From that, and Formula One, you get the drip-down, and that’s one of the reasons why I’ve brought guys in from Ferrari. Clearly it’s to engineer a car that matches the benchmark, and that benchmark in the market today is the 488, in my humble opinion.