Why are AM's core products not selling?

Why are AM's core products not selling?

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Discussion

GroundZero

Original Poster:

2,085 posts

53 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
Recently watched Jayemm's youtube vid on his opinion of AM's core business products, and why he thinks that by these which are not selling in numbers is why AM is in a current state of trouble.
Vid link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9-nGgawAQc

I am also wondering why the likes of the new Vantage in particular is not selling in competitive numbers (if you omit the very recent effect of the virus of course).
To me, the latest Vantage, on paper at least, seems to be a fantastic option if you don't want to go down the AMG, Porsche, Ferrari or Lambo route.
The re-introduction of a manual gearbox should also attract customers who are really in to their driver's cars.
The Vantage (from all model years) is a stunningly good looking car and well proportioned car with much higher practicality levels than many of its competition.

So it appears that all the ingredients for a successful high performance car are there, does it then all come down to price and reliability?, or is there a problem with customer care and post-purchase relations? Can any of you AM owners shed shed some light?

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
GroundZero said:
Recently watched Jayemm's youtube vid on his opinion of AM's core business products, and why he thinks that by these which are not selling in numbers is why AM is in a current state of trouble.
Vid link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9-nGgawAQc

I am also wondering why the likes of the new Vantage in particular is not selling in competitive numbers (if you omit the very recent effect of the virus of course).
To me, the latest Vantage, on paper at least, seems to be a fantastic option if you don't want to go down the AMG, Porsche, Ferrari or Lambo route.
The re-introduction of a manual gearbox should also attract customers who are really in to their driver's cars.
The Vantage (from all model years) is a stunningly good looking car and well proportioned car with much higher practicality levels than many of its competition.

So it appears that all the ingredients for a successful high performance car are there, does it then all come down to price and reliability?, or is there a problem with customer care and post-purchase relations? Can any of you AM owners shed shed some light?
Customer care and after-sales, I would say have a 90% positive feedback rate - there's relatively few poor showings on that front. Of course the influencers only need to recite one anecdote about a bad customer experience, and proclaim it's representative of the entire brand. It happened with McLaren, and did them no favours whatsover; Aston Martin appears to the next firm in the sights for similar treatment, which is a shame. When a car company is struggling to stay afloat or post strong sales figures - having mud thrown at them doesn't help. As per the name, influencers have a habit of being influential to prospective buyers, and if they make enough negative noise, it puts buyers off. The company then is fighting against negative press, and trying to sell cars to people who have it in their head that the products and customer service are awful.

The truth is that the cars are fundamentally superb, well appointed and offer great performance, but the interior styling of everything bar the DBX has been a misfire, and the exterior styling of the Vantage deviated too far from the safe path for existing owners to want to upgrade (some also find the DB11 and DBS to be 'hideous', but overall they don't polarize opinion as much).

Pricing often crops up as an issue, but when you adjust for inflation, Vantage for example, costs no more than the old one did - the problem Aston Martin has always faced though, is the life cycles of the cars are much longer than other car makers, and if you aren't offering massive overhauls during the life of a car, it's unreasonable to charge more year on year.

The net effect is when you then do launch a brand new car, there's a price hike - Porsche, Ferrari and co get away with it because of the shorter life spans and incremental price increases. The other issue is the expectation that a Vantage which is produced in numbers of less than (probably) 5000 per annum is expected to be sold for the same price as a 992 which will be produced at close to 40,000 per annum. It's simply more expensive to build an Aston, it always has been, and if you're not mass producing them, you need larger margins (Porsche have nailed this where the 911 is the highest margin car on the planet in terms of what it costs to build vs what it's sold for).

December's 'sale' to clear the decks of existing Vantage stock was the first move initiated by Stroll to strengthen residual values, and make the current lineup more of a built-to-order situation. It's difficult to sell new cars when sub-1500 mile examples for £30k less are sat a few feet away. At this moment in time, if you want a Vantage, there's relatively few available, and that's good news for residuals, and means if you want one, you need to be prepared to pay for it.

The styling issues (internally) will be resolved in the near future, and something like a DBX inspired interior with current MBUX should find its way into the Vantage, DB11 and DBS. The yardstick at present is the Conti GT for interior styling and infotainment integration. If they can top that, it'll work - and the DBX interior was the first sign of where it's heading, now the design team are getting into their stride. The engine in the Vantage and DB11 V8 is of course being superseded by the TM01 V6 - for two reasons; firstly the dislike of farming out for engines, and also that AMG's path is heading heavily down the downsizing route, and I don't believe Aston owners are yet ready to embrace a 4 cylinder hybrid...

Since lock-down measures were lifted and UK dealerships have re-opened, they've been busier than perhaps ever. Orders for DBS, Vantage and DBX have been good. Of course the quarterly results wont reflect that because of 3 months of being closed, but the tide has turned, the ship's heading in the right direction, and it's beginning to look up.

The so called vanity projects - Valkyrie, Valhalla and Vanquish, I don't believe will be canned. Stroll looks upon them very fondly, and in a way you could see his view of what he wants to do, as a parallel of Lamborghini wanting to take on Ferrari. It's quite personal for him, and he wants Aston Martin to really stick it to Ferrari, and the foundation to do so was already laid before he came in. The partnership with Red Bull and what was learnt on Valkyrie will feed into subsequent cars, and I expect as will be witnessed late this year, Valkyrie's not just a good first attempt at a proper hypercar, it'll be a new line in the sand.

I wouldn't expect any more condos, speed boats, submarines, helicopters or motorcycles - Stroll wants to get back to basics, and build Aston Martin cars. Moers is an unknown quantity at this point; he did a great job at AMG, so it shouldn't be a disaster. What's often forgotten though is how much Palmer achieved in a relatively short space of time (because there's more to it than the IPO failing). DBX for example, the factory and the car, from concept to production in less time that Lambo took for the Urus, when it had the entire VAG parts bin at its disposal. For a small volume company, Aston's becoming remarkably agile.

Aston's making some superb cars, that just need a bit of refining and tweaking to make them all things to all owners. It just needs a year or so for it to become visible. However, because the controversial, provocative YouTube content gets good views, I wouldn't expect the negativity to die down anytime soon.

Manners79

168 posts

58 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
Is it that they aren't selling? Or is it that they aren't growing as quickly as AM would like? A quick look here https://carsalesbase.com/europe-aston-martin/ shows some decent numbers over the past few years. Of course that is just the European market, they need to shift a lot of vehicles (esp DBX) in the US and China but as a very low volume manufacturer the numbers get skewed by world events more than for volume OEMs I think. Perhaps we need a few more years of data for the new Vantage/DB11 era to see how it compares to previous gen Vantage and DB9 (other Aston models are available but of course those are the core of the business in terms of volume).

Personally...I have a V8V4.7 which I love but will no doubt change at some time. Will I stay with the marque? Absolutely if I can. Maybe a V12 or DBS or maybe hold off a bit and get one of the newer models, all depends how the world pans out!

Rob F

95 posts

70 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
I bought my first Aston 7 months ago - DB11 - and I would say service standards so far seem very good. At least no different to Bentley or Mercedes that I’ve also owned.

Agree with some of the previous comments. I think it’s down to :
1) Price of Vantage v competition. Base prices look to be 15-20% more than the comparable AMG GT for example ...?
2) Styling - this generation are slightly more ‘growers’ than the previous cars which instantly looked amazing. Personally I wasn’t sure about DB11 when it first came out but now I think it’s a stunning car in the flesh. Often it isn’t as photogenic at certain angles which doesn’t help.
3) Interiors - generally I think they look pretty rubbish, especially with the stuck-on screen. I sort of grin and bear in it. If they refresh these with a small facelift I think that would be a really strong change.

murphyaj

610 posts

74 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
Manners79 said:
Is it that they aren't selling? Or is it that they aren't growing as quickly as AM would like? A quick look here https://carsalesbase.com/europe-aston-martin/ shows some decent numbers over the past few years.
Yes, they are selling, but not well enough. The key years to look at in the figures you shared are 2003 to 2007.
In '04 they launched the DB9, in it's first full year (05) sales had jumped from 709 to 2701. Then the Vantage was released in '05, and for it's first full year sales lept again to 3809, hitting almost 4000 the following year, declining as the models get older. Those are the kind of sales jumps you need when you replace your core models.

Fast forward a decade and they release the DB11 in 2016, then the new Vantage in 2018, yet sales peaked at 2590. 4000 down to 2600, that's the difference between making money to invest in future development, and burning cash. That's unlikely to improve until the DBX is out, it's very unusual for cars like this to increase sales as they age and newer competitors are released.

CB07

525 posts

232 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
All in my opinion of course. It does appear to me that Palmer and Reichman's decision to appeal to those of an avaricious disposition, youtube influencers and the supercar set, rather than focusing their historically more conservative customer base, was unsuccessful. As far as I can tell, the plan was to radically differentiate the core models, on the belief they could enter new markets (which IMO has been a marginal success), and presumably retain previous interest by the old guard (less successful).

Arguably this was a necessary move to keep the company afloat, and to a certain extent they were to be damned either way. Remain with broadly similar offerings, deflect criticism of familiarity and miss out on potential demand, or take the chosen path and risk ending up where we are today.

Was there perhaps another way? Why they didn't just introduce DBX first? The demand curve and market segment are now rather different to spring 2015 when it was first shown. Crikey, Bez even showed a concept SUV as far back as 2009! The company must have been aware of this growth segment, and bringing an SUV to market as the first 'second century car' would have been truly radical. I think they just simply took a risk, or mis understood what radical meant, and got it wrong. After all a big grill on an SUV doesn't look incongruous and it would have been a soft enough teaser for developing the rest of the range to suit this style and allowed Palmer to keep Reichman in check.

Reichman was instead given freedom on his vanity projects and as a result appears to have lost focus. Whether he had the ear of Palmer to enable this I am unsure, his remit appears to have been a kid in design candy shop. For me the first thing Palmer should have done was Introduce DBX, all hands to the pumps. Next project on the slate? Evolve and update the Vantage a la Porsche 911, as their volume seller. Then introduce DB11/S. If that has all gone to plan let MR go wild with the supercar side of things.

Instead of a radical core, the design language to me at least, appears to have been lost completely. In hindsight they could have had their cake and eaten it. I honestly feel if we had been seeing DBX's on the road rather than DB11's in 2016 it would be a wholly different story.

It's telling that Stroll's main focus is get back to 'making' Aston Martins. What is an Aston Martin? Well, that appears to be a question that is notoriously difficult to answer.

Jon39

12,782 posts

142 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all

GroundZero said:
So it appears that all the ingredients for a successful high performance car are there, does it then all come down to price and reliability?, or is there a problem with customer care and post-purchase relations? Can any of you AM owners shed shed some light?

Simple.

1. Beautiful looks at first glance is a major buying motive for so many Aston Martin owners.
The 2005 to 2018 Vantage was unveiled at the North America Auto Show in 2003. It was the star of the show and dealers were immediately besieged with orders. Those customers had not even seen an actual car, and they had to wait over two years for delivery.

2. Repeat custom was very strong during the 'VH' model period.

As you say, 'the ingredients' are present, but the traditional Aston Martin beauty has changed to something AML describe as, 'The Hunter' look.
The majority of existing owners have clearly shown, they are not keen on the new design direction for this model.

murphyaj above, has described the unfortunate outcome for AML in figures.

Hopefully the new management can concentrate on 'first glance' product desirability, and also remember how important their existing customer base has been.








anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
CB07 said:
Was there perhaps another way? Why they didn't just introduce DBX first? The demand curve and market segment are now rather different to spring 2015 when it was first shown. Crikey, Bez even showed a concept SUV as far back as 2009! The company must have been aware of this growth segment, and bringing an SUV to market as the first 'second century car' would have been truly radical. I think they just simply took a risk, or mis understood what radical meant, and got it wrong. After all a big grill on an SUV doesn't look incongruous and it would have been a soft enough teaser for developing the rest of the range to suit this style and allowed Palmer to keep Reichman in check.
Just on the DBX - I'm sure if they could, it would have come to market sooner, but the company wasn't (and still isn't) big enough to do it quicker than it has. Palmer came in in September 2014, the DBX concept appeared in March 2015, and the finished car unveiled in November 2019. That's pretty good going for a brand new platform, in a brand new factory - as I mentioned, VAG took longer to produce the Urus (April 2012 concept unveiled, to launch in December 2017, and the Bentayga took around the same time; 2012 concept and 2015 production unveiling), both of which utilised existing running gear within the group, so I'd argue they should have been able to produce them quicker, given their resources.

One thing I've never really had a good insight to, was how far along the DB11 development was when AP was appointed. It couldn't have only become a thing once he arrived, so it had to have started development prior, but truth be told, I expect the bulk of the time was spent on the exterior styling, chassis and the power train, which are the car's strengths. The interior (specifically the centre console) I don't believe the design team were 100% happy with, but they needed to have a car ready for Geneva 2016. It would perhaps indicate that the infotainment integration happened late in the day. Speaking of Geneva that year, it was actually a success, and over that weekend a good number of orders were taken on the stand - the trouble came when production was delayed and orders were cancelled when customers got fed up of waiting. The response was to give it full potatoes and subsequently lots of DB11's were built, flooding the market and hurting residuals.

Had they chosen to prioritise DBX over all other models - I'm not sure it would have arrived much quicker. It would however have then bumped the DB11 back, meaning the DB9 would still be sold for a few more years (in what numbers, who knows), and Vantage and DBSS would only just be getting launched now. In my mind, it made perfect sense to refresh the range in order of how old the lineup was. When a company is into the 10th year of selling a model, that's largely unchanged, the world has moved on and the only trump card it can play is aesthetics, and even then, DB9 only sold 71 examples in Europe in 2017 (according to a quick search) - I wouldn't have wanted to push it any longer. It was 13 years old when the DB11 was unveiled remember.

The same goes for Vantage - at the end of its life sales numbers were dropping (despite the AMR's etc). To bump it back a further few years would have been even worse, and I don't expect the many enthusiasts on this forum would be buying a DBX if it was the only available new model.

8Speed

726 posts

65 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
NFC 85 Vette said:
Customer care and after-sales, I would say have a 90% positive feedback rate - there's relatively few poor showings on that front. Of course the influencers only need to recite one anecdote about a bad customer experience, and proclaim it's representative of the entire brand. It happened with McLaren, and did them no favours whatsover; Aston Martin appears to the next firm in the sights for similar treatment, which is a shame. When a car company is struggling to stay afloat or post strong sales figures - having mud thrown at them doesn't help. As per the name, influencers have a habit of being influential to prospective buyers, and if they make enough negative noise, it puts buyers off. The company then is fighting against negative press, and trying to sell cars to people who have it in their head that the products and customer service are awful.

The truth is that the cars are fundamentally superb, well appointed and offer great performance, but the interior styling of everything bar the DBX has been a misfire, and the exterior styling of the Vantage deviated too far from the safe path for existing owners to want to upgrade (some also find the DB11 and DBS to be 'hideous', but overall they don't polarize opinion as much).

Pricing often crops up as an issue, but when you adjust for inflation, Vantage for example, costs no more than the old one did - the problem Aston Martin has always faced though, is the life cycles of the cars are much longer than other car makers, and if you aren't offering massive overhauls during the life of a car, it's unreasonable to charge more year on year.

The net effect is when you then do launch a brand new car, there's a price hike - Porsche, Ferrari and co get away with it because of the shorter life spans and incremental price increases. The other issue is the expectation that a Vantage which is produced in numbers of less than (probably) 5000 per annum is expected to be sold for the same price as a 992 which will be produced at close to 40,000 per annum. It's simply more expensive to build an Aston, it always has been, and if you're not mass producing them, you need larger margins (Porsche have nailed this where the 911 is the highest margin car on the planet in terms of what it costs to build vs what it's sold for).

December's 'sale' to clear the decks of existing Vantage stock was the first move initiated by Stroll to strengthen residual values, and make the current lineup more of a built-to-order situation. It's difficult to sell new cars when sub-1500 mile examples for £30k less are sat a few feet away. At this moment in time, if you want a Vantage, there's relatively few available, and that's good news for residuals, and means if you want one, you need to be prepared to pay for it.

The styling issues (internally) will be resolved in the near future, and something like a DBX inspired interior with current MBUX should find its way into the Vantage, DB11 and DBS. The yardstick at present is the Conti GT for interior styling and infotainment integration. If they can top that, it'll work - and the DBX interior was the first sign of where it's heading, now the design team are getting into their stride. The engine in the Vantage and DB11 V8 is of course being superseded by the TM01 V6 - for two reasons; firstly the dislike of farming out for engines, and also that AMG's path is heading heavily down the downsizing route, and I don't believe Aston owners are yet ready to embrace a 4 cylinder hybrid...

Since lock-down measures were lifted and UK dealerships have re-opened, they've been busier than perhaps ever. Orders for DBS, Vantage and DBX have been good. Of course the quarterly results wont reflect that because of 3 months of being closed, but the tide has turned, the ship's heading in the right direction, and it's beginning to look up.

The so called vanity projects - Valkyrie, Valhalla and Vanquish, I don't believe will be canned. Stroll looks upon them very fondly, and in a way you could see his view of what he wants to do, as a parallel of Lamborghini wanting to take on Ferrari. It's quite personal for him, and he wants Aston Martin to really stick it to Ferrari, and the foundation to do so was already laid before he came in. The partnership with Red Bull and what was learnt on Valkyrie will feed into subsequent cars, and I expect as will be witnessed late this year, Valkyrie's not just a good first attempt at a proper hypercar, it'll be a new line in the sand.

I wouldn't expect any more condos, speed boats, submarines, helicopters or motorcycles - Stroll wants to get back to basics, and build Aston Martin cars. Moers is an unknown quantity at this point; he did a great job at AMG, so it shouldn't be a disaster. What's often forgotten though is how much Palmer achieved in a relatively short space of time (because there's more to it than the IPO failing). DBX for example, the factory and the car, from concept to production in less time that Lambo took for the Urus, when it had the entire VAG parts bin at its disposal. For a small volume company, Aston's becoming remarkably agile.

Aston's making some superb cars, that just need a bit of refining and tweaking to make them all things to all owners. It just needs a year or so for it to become visible. However, because the controversial, provocative YouTube content gets good views, I wouldn't expect the negativity to die down anytime soon.
Interesting post - thank you.
I hope that AM can get back to a slightly more subtle form of styling (both exterior & interior). That's not to say reverting to a version of what came before but something I believe attracted many to the brand which was a sense of effortless style - not a brash approach. I think what spoils the overall basic beauty of the new Vantage is the over-prominence of the front & rear spoilers.

Neil1300r

5,487 posts

177 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
CB07 said:
Crikey, Bez even showed a concept SUV as far back as 2009!
For those of you that have never seen it, forgotten, or tried to forget it...




hurl

chesby

476 posts

223 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
NFC 85 Vette said:
Customer care and after-sales, I would say have a 90% positive feedback rate - there's relatively few poor showings on that front. Of course the influencers only need to recite one anecdote about a bad customer experience, and proclaim it's representative of the entire brand. It happened with McLaren, and did them no favours whatsover; Aston Martin appears to the next firm in the sights for similar treatment, which is a shame. When a car company is struggling to stay afloat or post strong sales figures - having mud thrown at them doesn't help. As per the name, influencers have a habit of being influential to prospective buyers, and if they make enough negative noise, it puts buyers off. The company then is fighting against negative press, and trying to sell cars to people who have it in their head that the products and customer service are awful.

The truth is that the cars are fundamentally superb, well appointed and offer great performance, but the interior styling of everything bar the DBX has been a misfire, and the exterior styling of the Vantage deviated too far from the safe path for existing owners to want to upgrade (some also find the DB11 and DBS to be 'hideous', but overall they don't polarize opinion as much).

Pricing often crops up as an issue, but when you adjust for inflation, Vantage for example, costs no more than the old one did - the problem Aston Martin has always faced though, is the life cycles of the cars are much longer than other car makers, and if you aren't offering massive overhauls during the life of a car, it's unreasonable to charge more year on year.

The net effect is when you then do launch a brand new car, there's a price hike - Porsche, Ferrari and co get away with it because of the shorter life spans and incremental price increases. The other issue is the expectation that a Vantage which is produced in numbers of less than (probably) 5000 per annum is expected to be sold for the same price as a 992 which will be produced at close to 40,000 per annum. It's simply more expensive to build an Aston, it always has been, and if you're not mass producing them, you need larger margins (Porsche have nailed this where the 911 is the highest margin car on the planet in terms of what it costs to build vs what it's sold for).

December's 'sale' to clear the decks of existing Vantage stock was the first move initiated by Stroll to strengthen residual values, and make the current lineup more of a built-to-order situation. It's difficult to sell new cars when sub-1500 mile examples for £30k less are sat a few feet away. At this moment in time, if you want a Vantage, there's relatively few available, and that's good news for residuals, and means if you want one, you need to be prepared to pay for it.

The styling issues (internally) will be resolved in the near future, and something like a DBX inspired interior with current MBUX should find its way into the Vantage, DB11 and DBS. The yardstick at present is the Conti GT for interior styling and infotainment integration. If they can top that, it'll work - and the DBX interior was the first sign of where it's heading, now the design team are getting into their stride. The engine in the Vantage and DB11 V8 is of course being superseded by the TM01 V6 - for two reasons; firstly the dislike of farming out for engines, and also that AMG's path is heading heavily down the downsizing route, and I don't believe Aston owners are yet ready to embrace a 4 cylinder hybrid...

Since lock-down measures were lifted and UK dealerships have re-opened, they've been busier than perhaps ever. Orders for DBS, Vantage and DBX have been good. Of course the quarterly results wont reflect that because of 3 months of being closed, but the tide has turned, the ship's heading in the right direction, and it's beginning to look up.

The so called vanity projects - Valkyrie, Valhalla and Vanquish, I don't believe will be canned. Stroll looks upon them very fondly, and in a way you could see his view of what he wants to do, as a parallel of Lamborghini wanting to take on Ferrari. It's quite personal for him, and he wants Aston Martin to really stick it to Ferrari, and the foundation to do so was already laid before he came in. The partnership with Red Bull and what was learnt on Valkyrie will feed into subsequent cars, and I expect as will be witnessed late this year, Valkyrie's not just a good first attempt at a proper hypercar, it'll be a new line in the sand.

I wouldn't expect any more condos, speed boats, submarines, helicopters or motorcycles - Stroll wants to get back to basics, and build Aston Martin cars. Moers is an unknown quantity at this point; he did a great job at AMG, so it shouldn't be a disaster. What's often forgotten though is how much Palmer achieved in a relatively short space of time (because there's more to it than the IPO failing). DBX for example, the factory and the car, from concept to production in less time that Lambo took for the Urus, when it had the entire VAG parts bin at its disposal. For a small volume company, Aston's becoming remarkably agile.

Aston's making some superb cars, that just need a bit of refining and tweaking to make them all things to all owners. It just needs a year or so for it to become visible. However, because the controversial, provocative YouTube content gets good views, I wouldn't expect the negativity to die down anytime soon.
This is one of the best and most considered posts I’ve ever read on PistonHeads.

Jon39

12,782 posts

142 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all

NFC 85 Vette said:
...... December's 'sale' to clear the decks of existing Vantage stock was the first move initiated by Stroll to ......

Puzzled by Mr. Stroll's involvement in the December 2019 UK dealer offers, Jon.

We were told about the USA 'give-away' monthly rental deals, by our American PH friends early in 2019. Around that time, AP was speaking about hoping to have similar offers in the UK. Of course doing it in December, put the destocking information into the 2019 Accounts.
Lawrence Stroll only formally became Executive Chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda in April 2020. 

Did you see the recent press comment, making the suggestion that AP fought aganst Stroll's arrival?

Edited by Jon39 on Thursday 9th July 14:44

DB9VolanteDriver

2,612 posts

175 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
GroundZero said:
The Vantage (from all model years) is a stunningly good looking car and well proportioned car with much higher practicality levels than many of its competition.

So it appears that all the ingredients for a successful high performance car are there, does it then all come down to price and reliability?, or is there a problem with customer care and post-purchase relations? Can any of you AM owners shed shed some light?
Obviously, all the ingredients are NOT there. Don’t know which one is missing? See the first line. And the interior/engine do it no favors. Bottom line, it can’t hold a candle to the 1st gen VH Vantage. 20 years from now the G1 Vantage will still be beautiful; the G2 will be hidden away so as not to offend anyone or in junkyards awaiting the crusher.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
Perhaps the new cars aren't as well liked as the old DB9 and Vantage? I like the look of them, but they don't look as 'nice' as the old ones. Hate the shotgunned interiors, too.

W12GT

3,502 posts

220 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
I think a significant factor is that customers are becoming less willing to buy new cars. I’ve always been into my cars and have lost a colossal amount over the years (well in excess of £250k). Therefore now when I go to a dealership I look at the new cars and see a screen price of say £120k then I go outside and see a used example that is say 6 months old for £90k. I think to myself .....hmm that’s the deposit on another rental property, or it will pay for 3 nice holidays or create a cracking man cave etc or have another car....

I can’t believe I am alone in this therefore less people buying new. Astons are still special and whilst o could turn up to a clients in my 911 I couldn’t arrive in an Aston - I’d be seen as doing too well. That may influence other too.

Furthermore the world has been in a fragile state for a couple of years - a lot of people waiting for a recession etc. In the UK and Europe the Brexit issue has cast a shadow for a long time and again made people cautious. A proportion of those in the EU will be thinking ‘screw Britain we won’t buy your stuff if you don’t want to be part of us’. Again that will damage some sales - especially if getting access to spares becomes a potential issue!

And then there’s the COVID-19 fallout which is still going to roll for a long time unfortunately. Look at AM share prices today - they are going down again which reflects the position.

Edited by W12GT on Thursday 9th July 16:33

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
Jon39 said:

Puzzled by Mr. Stroll's involvement in the December 2019 UK dealer offers, Jon.

We were told about the USA 'give-away' monthly rental deals, by our American PH friends early in 2019. Around that time, AP was speaking about hoping to have similar offers in the UK. Of course doing it in December, put the destocking information into the 2019 Accounts.
Lawrence Stroll only formally became Executive Chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda in April 2020. 

Did you see the recent press comment, making the suggestion that AP fought aganst Stroll's arrival?

Edited by Jon39 on Thursday 9th July 14:44
Sorry - you're correct. My dates were a bit out, but the underlying theory was in the ball park. Management at the time, and later reinforced by Stroll, acknowledged that the business model wasn't working, where too many cars were in circulation. Much like early DB11, there was a lot of examples of Vantage in the dealer network, that hadn't been built to order, which had been somewhat thrust upon dealers to sell. The combination of having stock sitting there a while, and the perception that the car's simply not popular - a short, sharp campaign to make ownership that bit easier; it helped clear the decks and provide some support for quarterly sales (though still not encouraging enough I imagine).

I've not seen AP's comment you mention. I expect he was a bit miffed about how it was announced. More recently, I think he took some satisfaction from the DBX receiving the Autocar Game Changer award. Whatever his legacy ends up being, Aston picked up a good chunk of accolades for cars produced during his tenure, regardless of sales success.

The positive I take from the whole sequence of events and AP's departure, was that Stroll's a strong character, no nonsense, but knows when to use a butcher knife and when to use a scalpel. His track record is in taking brands and increasing their worth and retaining or enhancing their core values and reputation - something that's useful at this moment in time. Changes needed to be made, but I view it more as AP delivered the first rough cut, that just needs some editing to make the finished product lineup one that as enthusiasts, that sense of pride to be part of (as fellow owners) can return. Maybe that's a bit too romantic, but I think the foundation is sound and the team at Gaydon and St Athan know what they need to do, and distractions will be removed in order to let them do it.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
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chesby said:
This is one of the best and most considered posts I’ve ever read on PistonHeads.
That's very kind of you thumbup

Typing stuff provides a break from an afternoon spent documenting the number of Lesser Horseshoe Bats entering a bridge abutment - oh how I wish my day job was something related to Gaydon instead
laugh

Buster73

5,042 posts

152 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
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Jon39 said:

Puzzled by Mr. Stroll's involvement in the December 2019 UK dealer offers, Jon.

We were told about the USA 'give-away' monthly rental deals, by our American PH friends early in 2019. Around that time, AP was speaking about hoping to have similar offers in the UK. Of course doing it in December, put the destocking information into the 2019 Accounts.
Lawrence Stroll only formally became Executive Chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda in April 2020. 

Did you see the recent press comment, making the suggestion that AP fought aganst Stroll's arrival?

Edited by Jon39 on Thursday 9th July 14:44
I’m not surprised AP fought Stroll’s arrival , as soon as Stroll turned up AP was dead man walking.

AstonV

1,563 posts

105 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
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They released the DB11 frown and then the new Vantage yikes. They chose revolution over evolution. That's what killed AML. Stupid management making stupid decisions. getmecoat

RichB

51,431 posts

283 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
quotequote all
Neil1300r said:
CB07 said:
Crikey, Bez even showed a concept SUV as far back as 2009!
For those of you that have never seen it, forgotten, or tried to forget it...
hurl
Yep, saw this in the metal last summer at Wormsley and it's no better up close. Thankfully they never badged it a Lagonda biglaugh