RE: Aston Martin sells Vanquish design for £20m

[hyphen]

HRCM said:

Lotus/ Geely?

Dyson?

Idle thoughts but who knows

lordf said:

TVR or Tesla.

Or Redbull are going to make a road car...

Would be beyond reckless if they had sold it to someone who will compete with them. Surely it must be a sale to a niche manufacturer and with lots of limitations.

[gigglebug]

Would a prototype be for sale if Khan had just acquired the rights to use the donor cars and tooling?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

[Sebastian Tombs]

David Brown Automotive?

[tridave]

Maybe Geely? It was a Lotus engineering car with the extruded chassis assembly done by Lotus structures. And the front ca,r on crash structure manufactured at Lotus cars.

[TooMany2cvs]

gigglebug said:

Would a prototype be for sale if Khan had just acquired the rights to use the donor cars and tooling?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

The entire production run, no less.

[alexgould12]

Bit of a strange idea but what about TVR? Could they use the technology and chassis to create a new Cerbera to add to the existing Griffith. It would possibly be more cost effective than designing from scratch.

[The Hypno-Toad]

lordf said:

TVR or Redbull are going to make a road car...

The best suggestions so far but it does seem very odd.

[RemarkLima]

Caterham, obviously... Right?


They've done it before, so some centuries later, give it another whirl.

[BigChiefmuffinAgain]

Can't see it being Khan or Tvr. Neither have that sort of money burning a hole in their pockets, from what I understand.

Really odd story. It's not like the car was a great success or has a cult following or has obvious further market potential. Maybe Tesla have worked out they can make their new Sportster on this chasis? They have some form with the Elise....

[BigChiefmuffinAgain]

Can't see it being Khan or Tvr. Neither have that sort of money burning a hole in their pockets, from what I understand.

Really odd story. It's not like the car was a great success or has a cult following or has obvious further market potential. Maybe Tesla have worked out they can make their new Sportster on this chassis? They have some form with the Elise....

[Amanitin]

i will place my bet on an unknown start up from the middle east. With active encouragement from the Kuwaiti stakeholders.

[jimbo2728]

Are they effectively saying they will just we out the Aston redundant car titles to raise funds and build share value? Or am I mega wide of the mark?

If so, apologies. But if that is their plan, how very disappointing.

[Mr-B]

jimbo2728 said:

Are they effectively saying they will just we out the Aston redundant car titles to raise funds and build share value? Or am I mega wide of the mark?

If so, apologies. But if that is their plan, how very disappointing.

Sadly that was the first thing that came to mind when I read it bit like selling off the family silver to keep the mortgage payments up to date. I can imagine Andy Palmer going through the basement pointing at old stuff and saying "we don't need that any more lets flog it".

[Turbobanana]

Wasn't me. I'd be about £20m short.

[Some Gump]

My bet is the swedish outfit behind R.motorsport.

They are the guys involved with the crazy high end customer side. 20m is nkwt in the grand scheme to Aston, so it won't be the chinese etc - would ruin the brand. Needs to be someone they can totally trust - like thiose swiss bods. Same with Kahn. Just too risky to the brand for such a small return.

Pretty sure the Valkyrie and / or red bull aston supercar thing was made possible by them too.

[Kermit74]

Can you imagine Porsche or Ferrari doing this?

Smacks of desperation to me - the share offering has not worked out to well for them.

[Some Gump]

TooMany2cvs said:

gigglebug said:

Would a prototype be for sale if Khan had just acquired the rights to use the donor cars and tooling?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

The entire production run, no less.

Thank god for that, it's awful!

[TooMany2cvs]

Some Gump said:

TooMany2cvs said:

gigglebug said:

Would a prototype be for sale if Khan had just acquired the rights to use the donor cars and tooling?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

The entire production run, no less.

Thank god for that, it's awful!

Well, of course. It's Khan. What did you expect?

[PGNSagaris]

cookie1600 said:

Kahn

No. They don’t have enough money for anything near the sums quoted above.

[HRCM]

This

hyphen said:

Add 20m more to the company so it looked better for the IPO?

The IPO where the CEO stood to make a whole load of cash,
https://www.fidelity.com/news/article/IPO/20180920...
https://www.ft.com/content/46361be6-bcee-11e8-8274...


and that went wrong for the employees who invested. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/10/21/as...

The whole thing stinks if you ask me.

and this

Mr-B said:

Sadly that was the first thing that came to mind when I read it bit like selling off the family silver to keep the mortgage payments up to date. I can imagine Andy Palmer going through the basement pointing at old stuff and saying "we don't need that any more lets flog it".

Summarises my thoughts well.
The deal smacks of desperation after the less than brilliant start to the stock market flotation. Its quite normal for mainstream manufacturers to sell off old designs with tooling. Supercars and their chassis, engines etc also get repackaged and reused more than some would think.
I’d be surprised if whoever bought all this was allowed to make it look anything like the original though.
My money’s still on Dyson but I wouldn’t rule out Lotus/Geely.