Aston Martin is in the midst of one of the most transformative eras in its 109-year history, welcoming ex-Ferrari boss Amadeo Felisa as its new CEO, embarking on a crucial £653 million funding drive and weighing up potentially industry-shaking strategic partnerships as it plots its path to an electric future.
The British firm has recently showcased a trio of branddefining range-toppers – the Vantage V12 Roadster, DBR22 speedster and fully finished Valhalla supercar – at Monterey Car Week in the US, which also gave the opportunity to catch up with three Aston executives and hear their perspectives on the firm’s strengths, priorities and outlook.
We talked to chief creative officer Marek Reichman, product and market strategy boss Alex Long and global head of personalisation and special sales Simon Inglefield. Here are their thoughts.
Reichman: "We’re on our journey to electrification, as everyone has to be on their journey. Partly because we’ve got legislation that we will have to meet in time. That means you have to produce your zero-emission products. We’ve announced that by 2025 we will have an electric car. We have a team that’s dedicated, working away. It’s going to be exciting. It’s going to look like an Aston Martin. It’s going to perform like an Aston Martin and it’s going to be electric. So we’re well on the journey."
New leadership
Long: "Under Felisa, if you look at the background of [the leadership team], it’s in high performance: a lot of mid-engine for the top performance brands. And so we have the manifestation of how we bring it to life because we’ve gone and really strengthened the engineering group to go and make sure we deliver that in the future.
"The challenge for the product side is we just need that leadership. This is what we want. We now have a greater capability, I would say, to deliver it."
New model lines
Reichman: "If you go back just 10 years, we had a front-mid-engined small car two-plus-zero, a front-mid-engined two-plus-two and arguably a four-door car derived from the same platform. That was it. They’re all front-mid-engined cars. Now look at the line-up: you go from the third iteration of the SUV to the far end of the room, with two mid-engined cars, the Valkyrie coupé and [Valkyrie] Spider. So in 10 years, the portfolio expansion has gone from front-mid-engine classic arguably to extreme mid-engine and extreme SUV."
Personalisation
Inglefield: "We’re celebrating 10 years of Q by Aston Martin. That’s where we have the options and the equipment that we share with our dealer network and our customers in a more defined way, as it were. And there’s no better way of showing that than the DBR22, which is a one-of-one. It’s a bespoke car, which gives you an absolute complete overview of what is available, whether it’s bespoke paint or a bespoke interior.
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