Will V12 Astons every be truly sought after?

[Ffffaster]

Slightly older V12 Lambos, Ferraris, etc seems be surging at the moment along with all the madness from the super-hot auction results in the US of late.

Not quite seeing the same effect on the Astons of the last 20 years or so.

I wonder is a V12 Vanquish, circa 2015 is the sweet spot for this sort of thing.

[brillomaster]

They will inevitably go up in value. 15 -20 year old cars are at the bottom of their curves, another 10 years and values will rise again, especially naturally aspirated v12s paired with manual gearboxes.

Saw a first gen v12 vantage the other day for £60k. Keep that 10 years and it'll double in value.

[Minglar]

This one sold for £64,000 on CC yesterday. They don’t come up for sale very often but I am a little surprised it didn't fetch a bit more. A lot of car for the money imho, but I guess the spectres of primary cat ingestion and CCB problems are possibly still hampering used values across the range of older V12 models. Maybe patience is the key. Cars like this are pretty much not made anymore, so get one while you still can.

https://collectingcars.com/for-sale/2011-aston-mar...

BRM.

[scampbird]

I'd be surprised if the market cared about cat ingestion or CCB issues. Water cooled 911s have their fair share of well known issues but it doesn't stop them commanding top money.

I don't get it but I live in hope. I'd love to have a car that was worth more than I paid for once in my life!

[ITP]

There always used to be several of the earlier 6sp V12 manuals for sale on autotrader, roughly 60/80k range.
Now there’s none, just the more expensive, later 7sp manuals.
Read into that what you will.

[DeejRC]

The Astons are undervalued but their values are somewhat hampered by Aston themselves shooting themselves in the foot. The F1 team continually underperforms, the cars post VH period have been less than well liked by the prospective owners and unfortunately the competition has largely blown them out of the water.

[Castrol for a knave]

DeejRC said:

The Astons are undervalued but their values are somewhat hampered by Aston themselves shooting themselves in the foot. The F1 team continually underperforms, the cars post VH period have been less than well liked by the prospective owners and unfortunately the competition has largely blown them out of the water.

That and the fact Aston do not support a heritage parts system like Porsche and will gladly ream you for a Volvo part in a green box.

[AC92]

ITP said:

There always used to be several of the earlier 6sp V12 manuals for sale on autotrader, roughly 60/80k range.
Now there s none, just the more expensive, later 7sp manuals.
Read into that what you will.

Indeed. I know last year in June, there was 19 cars listed. There hasn't really been any listed for over 2 months now aside two cars which sold instantly.
I believe the one on CC auctions would make more if it was listed in the open market. I think auctions will never be kind to these as PPI is a must given how many key areas require checks ahead of purchase. Auctions on v12 astons will always be reflective of the bottom end IMO assuming the worst case scenario and factoring a large slush fund.
In the last 6 months, I've had 5 people call to try and buy mine which isn't even for sale. The trade bids I've had were more than the auction result for the car on CC. Read into it what you will, but the demand seems to be rising and there's very few good examples coming to market.

Edited by AC92 on Friday 17th July 07:56

[Agent57]

Still waiting for my DB7 V12 to go up.

They've been flat for 15 years and dipping the last few.

Amazing value at the moment.

Not that I want to sell. Still looks and sounds great.

[EVR]

Castrol for a knave said:

That and the fact Aston do not support a heritage parts system like Porsche and will gladly ream you for a Volvo part in a green box.

Well said. This, to me, is the worst offender.

There is so much room for an heritage parts & upgrades structure. Even the fold-up screen, selling an official updated version in resolution, features and connectivity (CarPlay & Android Auto) like Porsche does would fly off the shelves.

I find it bizarre that you can officially have CarPlay in a 996 but not on a 2012 Vantage for example. In this day and age, the tech is there and fairly cheap.

[AC92]

EVR said:

Well said. This, to me, is the worst offender.

There is so much room for an heritage parts & upgrades structure. Even the fold-up screen, selling an official updated version in resolution, features and connectivity (CarPlay & Android Auto) like Porsche does would fly off the shelves.

I find it bizarre that you can officially have CarPlay in a 996 but not on a 2012 Vantage for example. In this day and age, the tech is there and fairly cheap.

This is very true. Not to mention when it comes to parts, most stuff is usually on backorder or worse still, simply unavailable to order. The supply chain for AM is shocking compared with competitors.

[Castrol for a knave]

EVR said:

Castrol for a knave said:

That and the fact Aston do not support a heritage parts system like Porsche and will gladly ream you for a Volvo part in a green box.

Well said. This, to me, is the worst offender.

There is so much room for an heritage parts & upgrades structure. Even the fold-up screen, selling an official updated version in resolution, features and connectivity (CarPlay & Android Auto) like Porsche does would fly off the shelves.

I find it bizarre that you can officially have CarPlay in a 996 but not on a 2012 Vantage for example. In this day and age, the tech is there and fairly cheap.

Baffling isn't it.

Porsche have realised that their heritage owners are often buyers of new, or at least, they are net promoters of the brand. Sure, some rarities will be expensive, but pro rata, about the most expensive part on my 928 is the outer door window seal!

Aston refuse to share any IP (at least outside of the US which forces them to share at least some). As a consequence, you have front discs at £2,000, which are just an AP or Brembo part (and ironically, were floating and rattly and ste from day 1) or a clutch at £6,000, which is most likely a Volvo XC90 part or similar.

The indy and owner sections have to find work arounds and they actively seem to disrupt owners from trying to find the parts. It is working and there are some surprising finds. Ironically, if Aston had been sensible, they could have controlled the parts supply and balanced price over sales volume. Once the alternative parts are announced, they will have no control over the Lexus rear diff / Nissan oil cooler / Stellantis air bag module or whatever it is that has been unmasked as the actual Aston part.

I get this is business, but it is short sighted. As an owner, I have zero brand loyalty to modern Aston and whilst my means might be a touch modest for a new Vanquish plenty of owners I know who could, won't, because they feel shafted trying to run their classics and older moderns.

. At Porsche, PCGB is actively trying to source parts and work with Porsche. They really work to make ownership of older Porsche a pleasure, TIPEC moreso, being at the "oily" end of ownership. Porsche and PGB seems to work together well, despite PCGB being a bit "challenging" at times.

Aston Owners, the Aston version of TIPEC, is a busy pool of owners sourcing and remanufacturing parts with no factory support

AMOC - they can get you 5% off a £30,000 guided tour round Spain or 10% off red trousers.

Edited by Castrol for a knave on Friday 17th July 08:53

[LTP]

I'm all in favour of a heritage parts idea but I think comparison with Porsche is a little misplaced, because of the sheer difference in scale.

For example, Aston made a total of 24,700 VH2 Vantages of all stripes; on the other hand Porsche builds around 35,000 911's per year and there is a historical car parc of 1.2 million 911's to sell parts to.

If you think I'm being too restrictive by only comparing the VH Vantage volumes, even though the Vantage was by far the highest volume model, then there were appox. 16,500 DB9's made. So adding Vantage and DB9 we get a total volume just over one year's worth of 911's, and 1.6% of the total 911 population.

Now I do appreciate that not all 911's are equal, and there will be various models with different parts throughout the 1.2 million cars, but the same applies to the Vantage and DB9 too. So if, for example, you want to persuade a manufacturer to create a high resolution screen that is designed to interface with the Aston electrical architecture of the time and they ask you what's the volume, you say an absolute maximum of about 40k units with no guarantee of actual sales you may find their interest wanes a little.

[scampbird]

LTP said:

I'm all in favour of a heritage parts idea but I think comparison with Porsche is a little misplaced, because of the sheer difference in scale.

For example, Aston made a total of 24,700 VH2 Vantages of all stripes; on the other hand Porsche builds around 35,000 911's per year and there is a historical car parc of 1.2 million 911's to sell parts to.

If you think I'm being too restrictive by only comparing the VH Vantage volumes, even though the Vantage was by far the highest volume model, then there were appox. 16,500 DB9's made. So adding Vantage and DB9 we get a total volume just over one year's worth of 911's, and 1.6% of the total 911 population.

Now I do appreciate that not all 911's are equal, and there will be various models with different parts throughout the 1.2 million cars, but the same applies to the Vantage and DB9 too. So if, for example, you want to persuade a manufacturer to create a high resolution screen that is designed to interface with the Aston electrical architecture of the time and they ask you what's the volume, you say an absolute maximum of about 40k units with no guarantee of actual sales you may find their interest wanes a little.

I was going to make the same point but with fewer facts to back it up ...

Those facts also point to the relative rarity of even modern Astons, making their low values even harder to understand.

[Minglar]

LTP said:

I'm all in favour of a heritage parts idea but I think comparison with Porsche is a little misplaced, because of the sheer difference in scale.

For example, Aston made a total of 24,700 VH2 Vantages of all stripes; on the other hand Porsche builds around 35,000 911's per year and there is a historical car parc of 1.2 million 911's to sell parts to.

If you think I'm being too restrictive by only comparing the VH Vantage volumes, even though the Vantage was by far the highest volume model, then there were appox. 16,500 DB9's made. So adding Vantage and DB9 we get a total volume just over one year's worth of 911's, and 1.6% of the total 911 population.

Now I do appreciate that not all 911's are equal, and there will be various models with different parts throughout the 1.2 million cars, but the same applies to the Vantage and DB9 too. So if, for example, you want to persuade a manufacturer to create a high resolution screen that is designed to interface with the Aston electrical architecture of the time and they ask you what's the volume, you say an absolute maximum of about 40k units with no guarantee of actual sales you may find their interest wanes a little.

Can’t disagree with any of that LTP. We have to accept that in the bigger scheme of things we own cars manufactured by a relative minnow in automotive volume terms, and that won’t change any time soon. But I do think the parts issue that has been highlighted, in addition to potential mechanical worries (which personally I think are generally misplaced) and the potential shrinkage of the AM MD network, are all factors which are putting people off and suppressing used values. Unfortunately AML currently has bigger concerns to deal with. BRM.

[Castrol for a knave]

LTP said:

I'm all in favour of a heritage parts idea but I think comparison with Porsche is a little misplaced, because of the sheer difference in scale.

For example, Aston made a total of 24,700 VH2 Vantages of all stripes; on the other hand Porsche builds around 35,000 911's per year and there is a historical car parc of 1.2 million 911's to sell parts to.

If you think I'm being too restrictive by only comparing the VH Vantage volumes, even though the Vantage was by far the highest volume model, then there were appox. 16,500 DB9's made. So adding Vantage and DB9 we get a total volume just over one year's worth of 911's, and 1.6% of the total 911 population.

Now I do appreciate that not all 911's are equal, and there will be various models with different parts throughout the 1.2 million cars, but the same applies to the Vantage and DB9 too. So if, for example, you want to persuade a manufacturer to create a high resolution screen that is designed to interface with the Aston electrical architecture of the time and they ask you what's the volume, you say an absolute maximum of about 40k units with no guarantee of actual sales you may find their interest wanes a little.

All fair points.

I think that Porsche and Aston differ in that Porsche (and VAG Group) have the ability to negotiate parts supply and pricing based on the sheer volume of parts required - they can go for bespoke.

Aston use generics and what is annoying is that they will never have the volume to sensibly start remanufacturing parts and they know it. They hold a dwindling parts stock and rather than work with owners to source fresh parts and supply, allow owners to link up with short run manufacturers of parts (my wife works in such a firm) they just shut up shop.

It is a case of

Q: "Hey Aston, I need this gearbox part"

Aston: " Yeah, unobtanium. We have 6 of them left and they are £9,000 each"

Q; "Can you tell us the Tremec/ ZF/ Valeo/Marelli part number please, you could sort out supply under licence"

Aston: "No, but we can sell some of our shares at 9p each"