What You Need to Know- Aston Martin

Aston Martin is a company that whilst famous has grappled with financial instability and shifting bosses and chairmen, though since it was taken over by Ford and then later privatised it has remained stable and steady thanks to wise investment and ever increasing brand awareness along with just being plain cool if not the coolest car brand out there. Here's everything you need to know about Aston Martin in one place, from movie stars and F1 cars to a bizarre city car and bankruptcy. 

Year Founded: 1913

Founders: Lionel Martin & Robert Bamford

Important People:

David Brown- Having bought the company and Lagonda in 1947 it was under Brown (a former tractor manufacture owner) that Aston Martin became an instantly famous brand with its racing success in the 50s and early 60s and dealings with the James Bond franchise, it's also where the DB series of cars get their names from.

Sean Connery- Whilst he wasn’t an employee, Connery as Bond help cement the association between the two brands and in turn made Aston Martin a worldwide brand associated with being effortlessly cool.

Dr. Ulrich Bez- Having gone through multiple owners through the 70s and 80s, Bez became chief executive officer under Fords ownership until 2013 (by which point Aston was privately owned). Bez previously notably worked for BMW & Porsche, under his watch Aston Martin sold 50,000 cars in 13 years, more than it had in the entire 20^th century! He also introduced the platform that would form the basis for all Aston Martins from 2001-2010.

David Richards- The boss of Prodrive and the B.A.R F1 team, Richards headed the DBR9 race program and helped buy Aston Martin from Ford in 2007, though he later dropped the ball with the AMR-ONE LMP1 car.

Astons to Remember...

DBR1- Aston’s only Le Mans win back in 1959 with Carroll Shelby at the wheel was the beginning of arguably Aston's highest point in history when they were winners on and off the track.

DB5 Vantage- Easily the most famous Aston Martin thanks to it’s appearance in the James Bond films, not a brilliant car but important nonetheless.

V8 Vantage ’77- The car that revitalised Aston Martin in the 70s and through the 80s, capable of 0-60 in just 5.4 seconds and a top speed of 175 MPH made this one of the fastest supercars of its time.

DB7- Whilst the DB7 was not a great car, it was (for a time) the most successful Aston Martin and helped keep the company ticking over until they could start to work on their new generation of cars: the Vanquish, DB9 & V8 Vantage.

Vantage- A huge twin-supercharged giant of a car with enormous power and torque that was much easier to handle than one would imagine, big but wonderful.

DB9- A much needed improvement over the DB7 and Vanquish. The DB9 served as the base for the V8 Vantage, DBS & Rapide too. It was lighter, faster, much nicer to drive and better finished than the DB7 and was also much cheaper than the Vanquish and had a way better gearbox, and don’t forget the way it looks too!

Valkyrie- Getting it’s name from Norse mythology, the Valkyrie is both Aston Martins flagship hypercar and the base for their new Le Mans Hypercar program, it has a naturally aspirated V12 with an electric motor and F1 KERS system making 1160 BHP.

AMR23- Astons best F1 car so far scored their first podiums, all obtained by Fernando Alonso and gave their best finish with 5^th overall in the constructors championship.

and Ones to Forget:

V8 Vantage ’05- This may be controversial but the first V8 Vantages from 2005 were not good cars, Aston has jacked the price up by 20k since first showing the car off in 2003. It wasn’t as fast as the 911 S and was even beaten by the much cheaper new Jaguar XKR. Even a Prodrive handling pack couldn’t make it as good as people wanted it to be and then was completely outclassed by the Audi R8 & Nissan GT-R.

Cygnet- Built out of necessity to meet company emission regulations, the Cygnet was just a rebadged Toyota IQ, one was made with a V8, but overall, it’s best to forget this silly car.

Virage ’11- Designed to fit between the DB9 and DBS as a mix of the two, the Virage was a niche too far, on sale for barely a year, a planned Volante was scrapped and most of its parts were given to the DB9 after production ended.

AMR-ONE LMP1- A poorly conceived open-cockpit LMP1 car that was plagued with problems and was pitifully slow compared to the other LMP1 cars.

High Point: The knockout success of Goldfinger catapulted the DB5 into the limelight and is the number 1 car associated with Bond, folks of a certain age will remember the infamous Corgi DB5 with ejector seat.

Low Point: Believe it or not, Aston Martin has gone bankrupt 7 times in it’s history (first in 1924, last in 2007), along with rarely turning a profit as well as being over £1 billion in debt (currently), though lately Aston Martin has remained financially relatively stable.

Fun Trivia

Roger Moore was the only Bond not to drive an Aston Martin on screen, though he did drive a DB5 in Cannonball Run playing a parody of himself as Bond.

Aston Martin’s roots in F1 go farther back than just the old Jordan team, Aston Martin competed unsuccessfully in both 1959 &1960.

The Aston Martin Valour was built from bits of other old Aston Martins, namely the chassis and engine from the limited run ONE-77 hypercar from 2010.