Three weeks from his 70th birthday and with an official announcement pending on his much speculated retirement from running Aston Martin Ulrich Bez has spent the last few days enjoying the swansong of his tenure in typical style. Which is to say laying down rubber in his cars and personally representing the firm to journalists - PH included - on the launch for the
Vantage V12 S
Vanquish Volante
"I did not work on the Z1, I made it!"
Fresh in from driving the latter we found Dr Bez chilling by the pool with a glass of white wine and his iPad, not a PR minder in sight.
Credit due, it's not often on a launch you get a chance to sit down fresh from driving the latest product with the boss of the company and chuckle over shared adventures out on the road, mimed steering inputs and all.
Bez has spent the day personally demonstrating the Vanquish to the man from the Sun, who's not one easily rendered speechless but seems somewhat shell shocked after some 'spirited driving' by the CEO on the twisting mountain roads. Bez is beaming - "on the way up the hill I got 5.8mpg and the tyres ... you could see they were so hot they were melting a little in the rubber!"
Told to replace the 911, Bez created the 993...
This is not usual protocol on a launch but Bez is in chatty mood and over dinner the conversation ranges far and wide, from his previous exploits at BMW and Porsche to the aborted Mercedes-based Aston/Lagonda SUV, the forthcoming tie-up with AMG and why he's not looking forward to turbocharged Astons while recognising that it's an inevitable need to abandon big normally aspirated engines.
Looking back on his career he reveals he has zero km examples of key cars he's worked on in his personal collection, including a BMW Z1, a 993 911 and an Aston DBS. Worked on? Oops, credit due...
"I did not work on the Z1," he corrects. "I made it! I only have cars in my collection that I have made."
Will this become a design classic? Bez thinks so
His passion for the Astons created under his watch shows no bounds either, his love of the Vantage design template cropping up again and again. Will we be celebrating its 50th birthday half a century on, much as we have been the Porsche 911 this year? "Yes of course!" he says. "When I came to Porsche they said I must replace the 911 but then we did the 993 and the 911 is still there!"
So having apparently personally inspired the Z1, saved the 911 from extinction, created an Aston design language that could yet last 50 years and guided the brand through its centenary year we turn to the firm's future. Losses posted last week and the missed opportunity to make the Mercedes GL-derived Lagonda SUV a reality must be regrets?
"When we showed the concept you all said no but I wanted it," he says, defiantly. "Porsche makes its money from the Cayenne, Jaguar is doing an SUV but we didn't have the money." Surely though launching it under the Lagonda badge would have lessened the emotional wrench of seeing an Aston SUV?
V12s great, but Aston needs more choice
"This is the trouble with brands," he says. "You consider Maybach, they spent lots of money and it didn't work. Aston Martin as a brand is very recognised in the UK, less so in the US and in China hardly at all. To start again with a new brand and communicating it with the heritage is very difficult."
Relationships forged in that project did, however, help with the recently announced tie-upwith AMG. Mention of which always seems to coincide with the appearance of a PR man from out of nowhere... Bez is very much on the here and now, asking what's wrong with the existing V8s and V12s - "We have great engines! - but recognising a wider choice of displacements and engines will help with markets, China particularly, with punitive policies against bigger engines. When we asked AMG boss Ola Kallenius, who helped broker the deal, about future engines he said of turbos and reduced capacity "the trend is clear."
Centenary year a good one for Bez to leave on
So, are we ready for turbocharged and downsized Astons? Bez makes a face. "I think we will still have V12s in 10 years time. But we need to improve CO2 and the only way to do this and have these specific outputs of 200hp per litre and so on is with turbocharging, which is a pity. It will work, it will add weight, it will add complexity but it is inevitable." When asked if a turbocharged Aston will still behave like an Aston he again raises the example of Porsche. "When I was there people said the air-cooled engine, this is the character of Porsche but do you hear anyone complaining now that they are liquid cooled?" Don't expect anything any time soon though, Bez saying it'll be three to four years before any fruits of the partnership appear.
And life beyond Aston? Bez wants to push the case for hydrogen powered transport, promising that the car of 50 years hence (Vantage shaped or not) will be hydrogen powered, energy for extraction of the fuel coming from renewable sources while the remaining oil is used for the production of plastics and the like.
He looks back on Aston's centenary year as a great high note on which to bow out too, saying he's enjoyed some incredible moments in the last 12 months and asking how he could top it.