Tuesday 15th October 2013

Ulrich Bez: PH Meets

Aston's boss on retirement, the 911 and the Vantage's design longevity

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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 and Vanquish Volante in California.

"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.

[Pistachio]

Excellent stuff, just one thing didnt mention his time with Daewoo after Porsche and before Aston hehehehhehe

[Andy ap]

Sounds like he has petrol running through his veins.

While i usually hate it when people dismiss turbocharging in the case where a screaming NA engine is part of the character of a car than i completely agree. Sign of the times though.

[Munich]

Who will be his successor?

[4a4]

I heard Dany Bahar is available?

[McWigglebum4th]

Oh that Bez

Not the Bez

[Agoogy]

Top man.
Some fantatsic product in his back catalogue.
He clearly took what he learnt about the 911 and duplicated it at Aston....and I for one have no problem with the design ethos/stance/layout being evolved for another 40 years in a similar vein.

No to an Aston SUV though...just no.

[dublet]

McWigglebum4th said:

Oh that Bez

Not the Bez

Bez doing his best Aston Martin impression:

[Kawasicki]

"I did not work on the Z1, I made it!"

Does he really believe that?

[McWigglebum4th]

dublet said:

McWigglebum4th said:

Oh that Bez

Not the Bez

Bez doing his best Aston Martin impression:

How about a Bez limited edition?

[Bash Brannigan]

McWigglebum4th said:

dublet said:

McWigglebum4th said:

Oh that Bez

Not the Bez

Bez doing his best Aston Martin impression:

How about a Bez limited edition?

Would its soul purpose be to bring drugs to the owner?

[oilit]

'I made it' ...................what a twonk

There is no I in team - a shocking revelation to a well publicised selfish dictatorial ivory towered fool.

Good riddance imho.

Edited by oilit on Wednesday 16th October 00:57

[g7jhp]

....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?"

Er, yes. He obviously doesn't spend anytime on the PH Porsche forum!

[soulfood9]

Erm, actually there is a 'me' in 'team'.

[oldtimer2]

g7jhp said:

....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?"

Er, yes. He obviously doesn't spend anytime on the PH Porsche forum!

I understand that aircooled 911s achieve much better resale prices than their water cooled successors. That seems significant to me.

[mark3man]

The current values of anything with 'DB' on the boot badge and at least 50 years on the V5 causes angst at Gaydon.

[mark3man]

Bez quote : "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."

Maybach was just another top of range saloon. Well, if Aston is hardly known in China, where it's said to be the place to sell SUVs for the chauffeur to drive, then start with a Lagonda badge anyway. Get the boy Beckham to drive one and the world will flock - surely that is how 'brands' work ? They don't have to have any background - just be 'famous'. For 15 minutes.
Successor at Gaydon ? The result of the owners' discussion : Kuwaitis and Italians. They will each have their favourites.

[RichB]

Dr Bez said:

Regarding the SUV "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?

No... it was because it was plug ugly!

[SeenTheStrings]

Kawasicki said:

"I did not work on the Z1, I made it!"

Does he really believe that?

Yes he does. It's his standard level of breathtaking arrogance. At launch they said they had 35,000 orders, yet only 8,000 cars were ever produced. It was underpowered, overpriced and mildly irrelevant.

As for the 911, 993s were reckoned to be the best built (and were expensive to make), which, along with the 'air cooled magic' and it's reduced propensity to fling itself into the scenery, probably accounts account for the strong resale values.

Aston Martin's 'Sales and Marketing Department' comes in for a lot of criticisms here and elsewhere for some of the strange products that were offered. They don't deserve a word of it; their greatest challenge was to try and curb The Good Doctor's worst excesses. So many have departed because they simply got fed up with being told they were wrong whilst being repeatedly proved right.

No mention of his great folly the Cygnet, I see. Of course, he was right and everyone else was wrong. They just don't understand...

And there's the rub. He's always right. Other people are just too stupid or insufficiently forward-thinking to understand why they should buy what he tells them to buy at the price he tells them to pay. His assertion that 'if we charge more, people will want it more and we'll sell more' became known as 'Bezonomics' in the company. He does at least generously afford people his valuable time to explain exactly how wrong they are and why.

The company has survived in spite of him, not because of him. History will probably remember him as one of the worst chiefs ever to run Aston Martin.

[PJ S]

SeenTheStrings said:

His assertion that 'if we charge more, people will want it more and we'll sell more' became known as 'Bezonomics' in the company.

Otherwise commonly referred to as Veblen goods – Rolex being one of the most widely known examples.

[pagani1]

For the fool on here the Z1 was the best handling car apart from the Ur Quattro..I should know i owned one and had a fabulous drive from Santander to Malaga with the engine wailing all the way.