New Car Announcement from the factory

[jonby]

Tweeted by Aston Martin Official Twitter feed a few moments ago:

At 2pm we'll release the first hint of a special concept. An Aston Martin celebrating our centenary, encompassing past, present & future.

One assumes this is either the CC100 which was announced at Geneva, to be shown at the N24 in the parade lap (tomorrow), which was described as being based on V12 Vantage Roadster, inspired by the DBR1, with no doors or roof, in a production run of just 2 cars, to be priced 'between zag & ONE-77' (which could mean, quite literally, anything pricewise)

OR, the recently rumoured 640bhp most aggressive Aston monster ever

OR, the two things above could be one & the same - either because the 640bhp monster is not going to be a production car, or because the engine will be featured in the CC100 but then brought into a production car

Remember BTW that Aston often produce cars described as 'concepts', but they are almost always 90-95% production ready. CC100 is not IMO a concept if they are making 2 of them, unless they won't be sold to customers in which case they are. Bez gave the price 'indication' in response to a journo question at the time which suggests CC100 is not a concept, but that could have changed

All will be known soon......

[:J:]

CC100 x2.

Both sold already

[Far Eastender]

DB5 4X4, you heard it here first...

[jonby]

:J: said:

CC100 x2.

Both sold already

I assumed that was the case - fact they call it a 'concept' is a touch misleading though. Bigger question for me is whether the 640bhp car supposedly coming soon is a production car, or one and the same as the CC100

[:J:]

jonby said:

I assumed that was the case - fact they call it a 'concept' is a touch misleading though. Bigger question for me is whether the 640bhp car supposedly coming soon is a production car, or one and the same as the CC100

Will have to wait and see

[jonby]

:J: said:

jonby said:

I assumed that was the case - fact they call it a 'concept' is a touch misleading though. Bigger question for me is whether the 640bhp car supposedly coming soon is a production car, or one and the same as the CC100

Will have to wait and see

indeed :-)

[goorwich]

Whoopee, a 2 seater with no roof or doors.
Big market for that then.
At least you won't have to worry about paint corrosion around door handles.

[jonby]

lots of info here
http://www.astonmartin.com/n24/reveal

apparently image & video at 3pm today - full reveal appears to be sunday

[speech]

They weren't kidding when they said it would be a hint!

[jeremydb9]

So not content with only making 77 of a car they bother to design .... they now make 2!

[yeti]

jeremydb9 said:

So not content with only making 77 of a car they bother to design .... they now make 2!

More proof, if any were needed, that it's time for U. Helmut Bez to move on. To somewhere very far from Gaydon.

[mikey k]

goorwich said:

Whoopee, a 2 seater with no roof or doors.
Big market for that then.
At least you won't have to worry about paint corrosion around door handles.

Though they do seem to have found it, built them and sold them - all be it 2 of them

[speech]

Much as I love Aston, this announcement is more like something you'd get from Top Gear...

We're bringing out a new model!!!


And we're only making two thou... no, two hun... no wait, just 2 of them...


And... they're er... already sold so you can't buy one. Even if you can afford one.

[jonby]

I think that making small runs of high price cars is Aston's future, albeit 2 is particularly low !

[jeremydb9]

but surely the main cost of a car is the R and D, tooling, training the workforce and so on. Actually churning them out is presumably the least of your problems.

[jonby]

here's the vid - still nothing to go on

[goorwich]

The DB9 is often described as a grand tourer .
If I had the brief I would therefore address this with more boot space, useful storage places in the interior and with today's technology more mpg. More legroom in the rear would also be nice.
The DB9 is a large car and I am puzzled as why this is so difficult to achieve.
(The Rapide is not quite my cup of tea.)

[jonby]

jeremydb9 said:

but surely the main cost of a car is the R and D, tooling, training the workforce and so on. Actually churning them out is presumably the least of your problems.

building 2 is like building one - no training the workforce as such, no production line or systems. If they build 20, you're right, they probably need to build 50 or 100. Problem then is you can't charge the huge prices for exclusivity

Look at V12 Zag - I guess they will end up selling just 30-40. If they had announced that number at the start, ironically demand may have been higher. If they were making 20, even more so. But 150 was the official initial announcement and the price was deemed to high for a rebody of an existing car

[PiloteAM]

jeremydb9 said:

but surely the main cost of a car is the R and D, tooling, training the workforce and so on. Actually churning them out is presumably the least of your problems.

Yeah, but you don't need tooling or training for two cars, you just outsource to a short-run coachbuilder like Zagato. It's very expensive, but vastly cheaper than setting up a production line.

Same way you make concepts.

[stevewushu]

Do you think there will be a new model Vantage anytime soon?

The styling, although 2004/5 in design was way ahead of it's time and the facelift V8VS/V12V still look very current next to the new DB9 and Vanquish.