Member Info for Richard365054

Having watched and studied Alonso's first race for the team it was remarkably impressive how much traction and balance the new car showed. A big embarrassment for Toto Wolf's team who provide the engine, gearbox and rear suspension. There was an occasion some years ago when Williams showed an initial pair of heels to the factory cars but Williams did not have the management expertise or engineering abilities to capitalise over the course of the season.

Fernando seemed like a reborn driver - for the first time in a decade he has a car that responds to his whims. I was also impressed with Lance Stroll' s race, considering his injuries. Fortunately he didn't take both cars out on the same lap.

I don't have the means to check the individual lap times, but Alonso certainly lost a lot of time fighting to repass the cars that got in front of him at the start. His deficit to Perez would have been very much less had he had a better first lap. But having said that, to watch him nutmeg Hamilton was very impressive.

Considering where the team was this time last year and some of the derisory comments on this site regarding the F1 team, they deserve the highest praise for designing a car and getting a driver who effectively was the closest competitor to the Red Bulls. Judging the traction that the car has shown, it will be very interesting to see the car perform on the twister tracks. Seems like 40 is the new 30.

It was interesting to see the volume of cars that AML manufactured and moved in the final quarter. It shows their capacity is ready and waiting for higher volumes coming with the new Sports/GT cars. It was also quite a jump for Valkyrie deliveries in the final quarter, somewhere around an average of 3 vehicles a week. But GT sales have certainly stagnated although the 770 will lend some good figures when it flows down the assembly line.

I'm a little perplexed though with regards to the timeline for new models - the precise analytical details under Tobias Moers have really disappeared. We know the revised DB11 will be produced Q3 onwards, but the timelines for the DBS and Vantage revisions are vague. One throwaway comment was the new Sports/GTs over the next 18 months. It lends weight as to why the 10,000 units target date has now been erased and changed to "in the future".

I'm one of AML's biggest supporters but I do expect clarity from results days and Stroll is somewhat of a waffler and rather ignores questions he does not like. It is perplexing that reference to the limited production 110th anniversary modelm was mentioned a few times but any question or detail regarding the core mid engined model was ignored or smoothed over. This of course, was originally penned in as the Vanquish and was going to be the filling that enabled AML to grow to 10,000 units. Is this no longer the case? The original split to achieve 10,000 was 4,000 DBX, 4,000 Sports/GT cars and 2,000 mid engined and specials. Certainly I would expect a DBX Coupe in the near future and 4,000 heavily revised Sports/GTs seems an eminently achievable figure. But where is the model that takes AML to 10,000 units? Is this the battery electric vehicle penned for 2025? A shame they couldn't give better clarity.

But the order levels are impressive for an ageing line up and to have increased volumes on the back of supply issues and the ramifications of the war in the Ukraine are commendable. I think 6 more months and the figures will improve once again plus we'll see what a heavily revised/ "almost new model DB11" brings to the market and how prospective buyers react to it. That is going to be a very big test and a momentous moment. I hope Reichman has learned some design lessons following the dog's dinner of a design of the current Vantage before it's front end refresh.

Thankyou Stille. Hi Doyezee, my only issue this year with AML is that I don't see any real upturn in volumes. The revamp of the DBS is a way of making good profits towards the end of it's run, but both the redesign of the DB11 and the first of the Valhallas are only going to find customers at the tail end of the year. Turnover and profitability should be improved but volumes might be only 6600 ish. Any thoughts?

....................................Jan 2023..............Jan 2022..............Increase/Decrease
Aston Martin...................106.......................110........................-4%
Bentley............................122.......................134.......................-9%
Ferrari...............................80.........................76.......................+5%
Lamborghini....................14..........................27......................-48%
Maserati...........................92..........................67......................+37%
McLaren............................8...........................12......................-33%
Rolls Royce.......................29..........................34.....................-15%

Staggering performance. 1st and 2nd in class at Daytona 24 hours plus first GT3 car home from a 33 car field. It doesn't get any better, but will British press report the success - not a chance.

Ghini, my understanding is that Valhalla, both design and interior are complete and finalised. Pebble Beach supposedly gave the first reveal of the finished interior. I'm not sure what carry over from Valkyrie there is since Valhalla is a much heavier car, somewhere in the region of 1500kgs. That suggests a lot of aluminium rather than carbon. I haven't seen anything in writing yet that says it will be 2024 before the first examples come off the line - so I still work on their earlier statements of late 2023.

Aston have been very quiet since Moers left - we haven't had a detailed timetable like he gave us originally which quoted ten models in about 3 years. I don't class specials with very limited numbers in this scenario. My feeling is that the original statement of 3 virtually new models (Sports/GTs) has extended, possibly as a result of supply issues continuing. But I wonder if there will be at some point a coupe version of the 707 DBX. This would take the battle to the Urus that has always had coupe styling from the outset, an aggressive design that a lot of people have liked.

The way I see it, the DBS 770 has been a pretty well kept secret, bearing in mind that all 500 units have been sold. A lot of loyal Aston Martin buyers will have been approached and seemingly very few beans have been spilled prior to Aston officially launching the car. Going by the price it will be one very profitable vehicle for the company and design finesse has improved some of the questionable styling of the original car. But a totally revamped and updated car it most certainly is not.
Which begs the question where is the timetable for the three front engined cars that AMR talked about being almost new models. The DB11 revamp is supposedly going to be announced in the autumn, but if the 770 is this models' swansong, are we down to 2 front engined Sports/GT cars from next year. The Valhalla is due to start production later this year, but that is a limited production mid engined vehicle, either 500 or 1000 units depending on who you read. There is supposed to be an electric vehicle in 2025, but does that replace an existing front engined car.

Aston made a big show of attending at Pebble Beach, but information regarding their core models was non existent. I hope there is going to be some clarity shortly as I'm a little confused with the timelines of the new cars and indeed how many of them there will be. DBS does not seem to have a lifeline beyond this special 500.

Aston Martin European sales (Inc UK) to end November 2022 ...................... 1910
% increase in sales over same period in 2021 .................................................. +5%
DBX sales to end November 2021...................................................................... 639
DBX sales to end November 2022 ..................................................................... 639
Vantage sales to end November 2021 .............................................................. 584
Vantage sales to end November 2022 .............................................................. 661
Valkyrie sales to end November 2022 ................................................................ 13

..............................Dec 2022.......% change from 2021.............YTD 2022.............% change from 2021
Aston Martin................97......................+26%..............................1074...........................+3%
Bentley.........................96..................... -17%...............................1629.........................+ 21%
Ferrari...........................47..................... -6%..................................998.......................... -5%
Lamborghini................ 11..................... -39%................................482......................... +8%
Maserati........................ 71.................... +3%.................................720......................... -6%
McLaren........................ 5...................... -55%................................ 201........................ -38%
Rolls Royce................... 23.................... +64%................................ 492........................ +57%

From Marek Reichman, Global Creative Officer.

"We're on our journey to electrification, as everyone has to be on their journey. Partly because we have 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."

"I think the business has to have a focus and if our focus is to deliver performance, to always have the top-of-the-pyramid, fastest, most powerful, dynamically capable and beautiful cars, then as a business, we have to focus on Aston Martin to get to the top of that hill. Because it's not an easy journey, the Lagonda can wait. It's something we own. It's something we have in the bag. And when we're on the top of all those peaks, then maybe we think about the car that's about that."

"If you go back just ten years, we had a front-mid-engined small car, 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 Coupe and Valkyrie Spider. So intent years the portfolio expansion has gone from front-mid-engined classic arguably to extreme mid-engine and extreme SUV".

"The Aston front grille has to be there. I have these arguments with Adrian Newey because actually, a planar wing at the front, above the lower wing on the Valkyrie, is far more efficient. But Adrian,luckily, has a DB5, so I said to him, "why did you buy a DB5 mate? Because it's got that shape on it". I think it's part of the language that you recognise , just in the same way as, let's say, Hermes. You know, if you look at the pattern and how it's evolved, or their colours, from inception to today, you still see Hermes in the specific colour that they use".

Some recent interviews with recent top executives of AML.

Simon Inglefield - Global Head of personalisation and special sales. "Some clients have bought one of each Valkyrie: coupe, AMR Pro and spider. They can also see an end of an era, but also the technology in this car: ac12-cylinder that revs to 11,000."

Alex Long - product and market strategy boss. "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 that we just need that leadership. This is what we want. We now have a greater capability, I would say, to deliver it."
"At this moment in time, consumers have the perfect world: they have the greatest choice ever available to them. They can buy a V12 and they can also run an EV daily, nomproblem. The V12 is now a pretty advanced engine, and as long as we can continue to evolve and make it relevant for the legislation, but also deploy it in the kind of products that make it truly special, then you have a different use case: the guy who might daily drive a Lucid or a Tesla."

Here's an answer to your own rant. APAC sales were down 26% in Q1, but up over 5% in H1. AML said months ago 1st quarter production in 2022 would be the lowest. Which period you prefer to quote shows your own bias. Personally, I much prefer a half year to a quarter. But if you insist on quoting Q1, you should also state that Q2 2022 compared to Q2 2021 was up 31%, hence the growth overall in H1.

DBX sales were 32% down in H1, much of this due to over 350 vehicles awaiting a few components, but also because (official reason given) of switch of line to 707 production. I'm quite happy to accept a Director's statement and having those vehicles moved to dealers from July onwards for despatching to customers. That would make the figure down 10%. I'm not worried about that with how AML structured the early part of the year and I'm pretty happy that they can quote DBX orders up 40% compared to the previous year. If you don't like Directors' reasons and explanation, write to then and share the results.

It's worth bearing in mind that the hybrid straight six China only DBX went on sale, I believe, last November. So we haven't had a full year of sales for this model.
Looking at UK and Europe figures for the first 8 months of 2022 and they are static, albeit they include Valkyrie models, so the average selling price will be considerably higher than last year. The company always stated in advance that the start of this year would have the lower volumes.
Vantage sales are up around 12%, DB11 sales are up around 13%. DBS sales are lower and DBX sales are down 10%. The latter almost certainly still feeling the aftermath of 707 component shortages.
It's interesting that Sports and GT are somewhat stronger than last year, although some of this will be accounted by the V12 Vantage reaching customers.
But what is interesting is the very strong demand for the hypercar derivatives, limited edition V12 Vantages and deposits for the 1000 unit run Valhalla which goes on sale early 2024. The last figure I heard relating to deposits received for the latter was 500 and this was around the time of the launch of the car at Pebble beach with the first reveal of the finished interior.

The major significance is on margins, the much reported 40%. We know the 707 and both versions of the V12 Vantage hits these figures, although whether that is still the case with currency changes, we don't know. Valhalla is also designed to yield this margin. The three core Sports/GT models undergoing their heavy redesigns will also provide this same margin. They are now not too far away. Very shortly, a guesstimate of at least 80% of total production will be yielding 40% in 2023.

Who knows what is going to happen to component supplies and the madman from Russia. If he does the unthinkable then it won't matter what happens at Aston Martin or any other manufacturer.
But in the meantime we await Reichman's redesigns and I just hope his team have more input this time and apply the beauty that came through with Valhalla into the heavily revised models. I'm not his biggest fan as most of you have probably read before. He hasn't often shown the ability to design a headlight, bonnet or grill but I have a sense that the largish design team at AML will have greater freedoms, plus he will remember how castigated he has been over the design of the current Vantage which Palmer should never have signed off. The range we have today is still very much from the Palmer era and I easily remember how many years Bentley have taken to get to where they are today.

With the redesigns will come the replacement infotainment and then the question is volumes or numbers. The first worldwide hybrid will be Valhalla in 2024, the first electric car, I believe, a sportscar in 2025. I have my own numbers projection for 2023, but where will the war in the Ukraine be at year's end.

bestsellingcarsblog.com/2022/08/china-imports-july-2022

76,279 new imports found a buyer in China in July, that's a 12.9% year on year fall bringing the year to date tally off -24.1% to 440,583 units.
Below Volkswagen + 10.1%, Ferrari + 630.4%, Lamborghini + 40.3% and Aston Martin + 23.3% post the only additional gains in the market.

Swallow twice and get your heart rate down Kong or you'll burst a blood vessel. c26 is doing what he did 12 months ago, massaging and manipulating sales/volumes to support his rhetoric. The actual year end figures came out rather differently. If you choose to support his distortions, that's up to you.

As usual, what c26 doesn't say is that Aston's order book has been full for this year for quite some months with regards to meeting their year end sales target. The challenge is getting the cars out of the factory, rather different from the challenge being sales.
Aston's 2022 target was 6600 volume, c26 creates his own figure of 6800 just to colour things for his own argument.
Aston's H1 2022 was 2675 plus 350 707s awaiting some final parts. On that basis Aston need an additional 3575 volume in H2. Just to put in some context, Aston wholesaled 1928 in Q4 in 2021, so production and sales are not an issue, providing parts supply are all under control.
Sherief Bakr, Head of Investor Relations, emailed that in regard to the residences in Miami, AML have other related activities planned for later in the year. The whole team are working hard to deliver on their targets and are focused on doing that.

Pass your comments on to Aston Martin Lagonda staff. They'll be delighted you hold their jobs in such contempt.

Must admit it's the best event I've ever been to and it is the cars, their sounds and the lack of grip, plus pretty much everyone enjoys wearing something appropriate.
The only real difficulty is finding somewhere to stay as everything is booked up more than 12 months ahead. Hiring a big camper van if there are a few of you would be a good solution and avoid a long drive each morning and evening.
The only other downside from when I was last there is you have to be a member of the Goodwood Racing Club to get tickets to enter the paddock. Last time I was there your entry ticket to the circuit was sufficient and this was very reminiscent of how all circuits in the 60s and 70s treated spectators. If you only go to Goodwood once a year because of how far away you live then the extra cost of membership is rather high and somewhat unfair.

Do people not think Andy Palmer should get a lot of the flak. At the beginning of 2020 AML was about to go under. Cars were virtually being given away in order to massage sales figures. There hadn't been a beautiful new Aston since the DB9. The newly released Vantage was an eyesore and both Reichman and Palmer should have been castigated for (a) designing it, and (b) signing it off. If the Vantage had had a more appealing design, sales figures and margins would have been significantly better. I still find it remarkable that Reichman survived. The Valhalla is a very lovely design. I hope the three eagerly awaited Sports/GT redesigns due soon continue this theme. Ferrari took the DB10 design and turned it into the Roma. I hope to goodness Reichman has learned something about headlights, bonnets and grilles after the disaster that was the Vantage.