Aston returns first profit for 40 years
Newswheel staff :: 04 July 2006 :: Filed under Coupe, Aston Martin, Europe & UK, US
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Well worth the wait?
For the past 40 years, boutique British sports car maker Aston Martin has been relieving investors of cash. But no longer. The company’s 62-year-old German head honcho, Ulrich Bez (he of 993-vintage Porsche 911 fame amongst other achievements), has revealed that Aston turned a profit in 2005 – the first real return for its owners since the 1960s…
It’s taken until now for Aston’s improved financial fortune to emerge because its accounts are woven into the overall results of Ford’s struggling Premier Automotive Group, including the heavily loss-making Jaguar brand. According to Bez, Aston’s success is partly thanks to a boom in the number of super-rich bods on planet earth. Here in Blighty, for instance, the Sunday Times reckons the millionaire count is at record levels. But Bez is happy for the company to take some credit for its own success. “The DB9 is the most beautiful, aesthetic car in the world. There is no competition. This is the base factor for its success,” he says.
Bez’s beauty: Aston’s boss reckons he DB9 is the best looking car on the planet
As for specifics, the Sunday Times rather irritatingly doesn’t divulge the precise profit figure for 2005. It’s also not known exactly how Aston itself has come to this conclusion of profitability – does it, for instance, include amortisation of the full costs involved in developing the company’s new range of high tech aluminium cars? And will Aston’s profitability last long enough to allow it to pay for future models in-house rather than courtesy of hand outs from its sugar daddy, Ford Motor Company?
In short, we’ve no idea. All we can say is that production has increased massively over the past five years – from just 300 cars in 2000 to 5,000 today. Consequently, Bez says, Aston martin, is no longer the preserve of a handful of UK-based fanatics. Around 70 per cent are now flogged overseas. Modern Astons may have lost much of their progenitors' hand-built aristo charm. But when the alternative is a family of genuinely beautiful and capable sports cars, that’s a small price to pay. And just possibly worth the 40 year wait.
Linkage:
Sunday Times
Posted 16 January 2007, by Bradly.Ap
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