ROME – Aston Martin to get out of the crisis thinks of a super SUV to challenge Lamborghini. The English house is working at full speed to get out of the difficulties that had arisen in 2020 management, when deliveries to dealers had dropped by 42% and turnover had gone from 980.5 to 611.8 million pounds, all accompanied by an operating loss of 323 million pounds.
In an interview with the US magazine, Car and Driver, the CEO of the company, Tobias Moers, has drawn up a roadmap of the measures that have been taken and of the innovations in the range that will serve to compete effectively in the lucrative supercar and super SUV market. One of the most important objectives among those announced by Moers is precisely what concerns the first SUV of the brand, the DBX, which will have to compete with the Lamborghini Urus with a high-performance variant, scheduled for 2022.
Referring to the leading model of the Sant’Agata Bolognese company, Moers said that “his stay at the top of the segment is a little too comfortable at the moment”. In addition to the super-DBX, Aston Martin will follow in 2023 a plug-in hybrid version that will use the same V-8 73 AMG plug-in architecture when fitted to the Three-pointed Star models. It should be remembered in this regard that Tobias Moers, who took over from Andy Palmer a year ago at the helm of the company, comes from Mercedes AMG, one of the shareholders of Aston Martin which is controlled by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll.
Many, indeed very many, of the measures announced by Moers in the interview with Car and Driver, are linked to the technological and industrial collaboration with the Stella a Tre Punte. Having abandoned the project of a hybrid V6 engine designed for the mid-engined hypercars Valhalla and Vanquish, the company will now focus on V8 units of AMG origin, substantially different, however, from those currently used in the Vantage, DB11 and DBX. “We will create a bespoke engine for Valhalla starting from the V8 AMG and Vanquish will have another one – said Moers – We will be able to make substantial changes, much more than before. You can’t just take a Black Series engine for example and put it in a mid-engined car. The V8 engines will be integrated with a plug-in hybrid system that Aston will design and engineer by itself and which will not come from Mercedes, just as we will have to create the electrically driven front axle ourselves. “
Before arriving at Aston Martin, comments Car and Drive, Moers was in charge of AMG Project One, and being the only person in the world to have followed the development and above all to have driven prototype versions of both cars, he is in a position unique to compare them. “They are not rivals, they are totally different cars – said Moers – Valkyrie is a two-seater Formula 1 experience. Project One is much more like a standard vehicle, but with a more tailor-made engine.” Production of the hypercar has also been moved to the Gaydon plant as part of a drastic streamlining of the company’s manufacturing operations.
As for the current range of Aston Martin sports cars, namely the Vantage, the DB11 and the DBS Superleggera, Moers said these will be freshened up with heavy facelifts for the beginning of 2023 but the novelties will not include hybrid powertrains. The big changes will come later, when – due to stricter European emissions standards – the current twin-turbo V12 is abandoned and when the next-generation sports car platform will also allow EV architecture.
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