Percentage of Aston Martins Still On Road

[hashluck]

I was just watching a documentary on Rolls Royce and someone proudly commented that 'over half of the Rolls Royces ever built are still running today'

Now in AM's own marketing material they state....


"Out of the 65,000 Aston Martin cars made, approximately 90 percent are still on road"

I have heard this before and always thought it impressive but when you really think about it what a remarkable statistic. You would think of all the long standing global marques it would be Rolls Royve that might come closest to equalling it but it seems even they are not even close. Would be interesting to know the figures for Ferrari and Lambo.

It is interesting to ponder why this has happened with AM, but perhaps more pertient going forward is since the (very) relative mass production of Gaydon how long can it continue? With V8 Vantages now at £30K they will likely find buyers perhaps not willing or able to give them the care and attention they deserve though one feels it would have to get really bad to ever scrap an Aston and an accident write-off might remain the only way it will happen. But, given Rolls Royce has never been mass produced on any level I could be barking up the wrong tree anyway. I am guessing there are quite a few 70s RR Saloons with usual rust etc that are just not deemed special enough to save and thus are beyond economical repair whereas Astons are generally always special and beautiful and worth saving?

Is it as simple as that?

[adamfawsitt]

Very interesting indeed.

I would doubt that Aston Martin are at 90% any longer taking into account abandoned, cannibalised and written off cars. As you say the incredibly high remaining rate must be rooted in the extremely low production volumes of AM up until the last few decades.

[montecristo]

According to https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk, there are around 9,500 on the road in the UK.

[downr]

I suspect the 90% figure for Rolls Royce is a bit of a con in the same way that it would be for Aston Martin

Keep in mind that for most of its life Aston Martin was a low production, hand-made car (With all the usual workforce disputes). So with the advent of relatively mass produced models the total production is heavily skewed towards recent years. I would guess the company produced less than 1000 cars pre-war. And then you look at models like the DB5 (which was in demand) and they only managed 1083 between 1963-65.

Newport Pagnell in total produced some 13,000 cars from the late 50s until the last Vanquish left the production line. Nowadaway, Gaydon produces what 3500-5000 cars a year?

So the real test would be how many Rolls-Royces produced before, say 1980, are still on the road

[Aston Registrar]

It is, and always was, claptrap

What the quote should be is that 90% of all Aston Martins still exist. Many of theses are not actually on the road. They may be roadworthy, almost roadworthy or needing resto. But a massive number still exist and for that we should be extremely grateful.

The reason for knowing this relates to trying to bring cars together for events and such like. So many owners have the cars but when I have approached them to bring them out to play, the truth comes out.

The register once finished should enable the true figure to be known, but I still estimate this to be a number of years away.

[downr]

What percentage of aston martins are db7 and Gaydon era tim? Any ballpark figure?

Thx

Rob

[Aston Registrar]

The DB7 now accounts for 10.5% although just as production ended they represented about 34 %

Gaydon cars represent just about 70% of all time production, maybe a tad higher. I could revisit my numbers and give a more accurate figure if you like.

Edited by Aston Registrar on Sunday 10th August 08:34

[hashluck]

downr said:

I suspect the 90% figure for Rolls Royce is a bit of a con in the same way that it would be for Aston Martin

Rolls Royce are only claiming >50% which I suspect is true and most likely more of an accurate figure for AM