Aston Martin Factory 1995

An inside look at the largely hand built British luxury car, Aston Martin.
After years of ups and downs, Aston Martin was bought by Ford. Ford placed Aston in the Premier Automotive Group, invested in new manufacturing and ramped up production. In 1994, Ford opened a new factory at Banbury Road in Bloxham. In 1995, the company produced a record 700 vehicles. Until the Ford era, cars had been produced by hand coachbuilding craft methods, such as the English wheel. In 1998 the 2,000th DB7 was built, and in 2002 the 6,000th, exceeding production of all previous DB models. The DB7 range was boosted by the addition of V12 Vantage models in 1999, and in 2001 the company introduced the V12-engined Aston Martin Vanquish.
At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan in 2003, Aston Martin introduced the AMV8 Vantage concept car. Expected to have few changes before its introduction in 2005, the Vantage brought back the classic V8 engine to allow the company to compete in a larger market. 2003 also saw the opening of the Gaydon factory, the first purpose-built factory in Aston Martin's history. Also introduced in 2003 was the DB9 coupé, which replaced the ten-year-old DB7. A convertible version of the DB9, the DB9 Volante, was introduced at the 2004 Detroit Auto Show.
In October 2004, the company set up the dedicated 12,500 square metres (135,000 sq ft) AMEP engine production plant within the Ford Germany Niehl, Cologne plant. With capacity to produce up to 5,000 engines a year by 100 specially trained personnel, like traditional Aston Martin engine production from Newport Pagnell, assembly of each unit is entrusted to a single technician from a pool of 30, with V8 and V12 variants assembled in under 20 hours. By bringing engine production back to within the company, the promise was that Aston Martin would be able to produce small runs of higher performance variants engines.[19] This expanded engine capacity allowed in 2006, the V8 Vantage sports car to enter production at the Gaydon factory, joining the DB9 and DB9 Volante.
In December 2003 Aston Martin announced it would return to motor racing in 2005. A new division was created, called Aston Martin Racing, which became responsible, together with Prodrive, for the design, development, and management of the DBR9 program. The DBR9 competes in the GT class in sports car races, including the world-famous 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In 2006, an internal audit led Ford to consider divesting itself of parts of its Premier Automotive Group. After suggestions of selling Jaguar Cars, Land Rover, or Volvo Cars were weighed, Ford announced in August 2006 it had engaged UBS AG to sell all or part of Aston Martin at auction.
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[@gillamcharlesm6021]

I love these cars, Newport Pagnell wasn't a factory, it was a Manufacture :-)

[@michaelbeck7799]

Superb video. Artisans and craftspeople everywhere. Brilliant!!

[@burniemaurins2382]

Around the time this was filmed the factory invited all V8 owners to take their car to this factory, I had a series 2 AM-V8 at the time, you left your car with the service department who road tested the car and gave you a full report for free. Whilst your car was being checked over you had a guided tour, I was shown the chassis of the last V8 Vantage being made, shortly after the Vanquish was launched, a day my wife and I still have vivid memories of, I took pictures of the visit, I'll have to try and find them.

[@RoveFans]

That's how expensive cars should be made.

[@olafzijnbuis]

Rubbish. All that stupid handwork make the car expensive. Not better.
Using pre-war manufacturing methods and machines does not contribute to reliability.

[@olafzijnbuis]

Rubbish. All that stupid handwork make the car expensive. Not better.
Using pre-war manufacturing methods and machines does not contribute to reliability.

[@olafv.2741]

@Matt Frazier What I mean is: They use handtools only because stamping the body panels is not economical if you only produce a handful of cars a month.

[@sfenodonte]

@@olafzijnbuisOf course, but if I think that the Jaguars were built like this only in the 80s, and now the chassis is made by robots, the engines are bought at the market, made by robots in large quantities and often with "ridiculous" displacements, interiors where the class English has disappeared ......... I prefer the flaws and poor reliability of a time ......

[@Mussi93]

sfenodonte You can use robots and manufacturing in conjuction. One doesn’t need to exclude the other. I get that the idea of purely human made cars is nicer, but objectively the quality is worse than when you use robots as a help. Though not necessarily in every area.

[@garrydavis3475]

The good old days when you could buy a real hand made Aston Martin good real craftsmen and woman creating your masterpiece

[@julien23lastchristmas2]

The own British knowledge wow 👏👏👏🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 BRAVO !!!👏👏👏👍

[@markcarter9476]

Lovely to see craftsmen and women at work, but this was 1995 and the factory scenes look like they come out of the 1950's. Thankfully Aston Martin have invested in modern facilities and techniques and can now produce better quality cars more efficiently. These artisans did however leave us with a fine body of work that we can continue to cherish and enjoy.

[@nigelwest3430]

My era at Astons, Shame they included the DB7.

[@regfenster]

The early years of the DB7?

[@sfenodonte]

The question is ......... How are they built today?

[@robertmatthews7527]

with absolute robotic precision - free of too many "pints" last night, free of "I have to get out of here Friday's", free of "oh no it's Monday and I have to go to work", and finally the real killer of hand-built cars, "I'll teach these a-holes that didn't give me my raise"

[@sfenodonte]

@@robertmatthews7527 ?????????????????

[@Mussi93]

sfenodonte He’s talking about the unreliability and errors of humans...

[@kip267]

@@robertmatthews7527 it's not a Ford factory lol

[@poppenspieler]

Which model is it at 5:45?

[@davidsalmon5405]

Mainly V8 and then Virage and later in film the DB7

[@DB7PHiL]

That was the DB4 Prototype/Design Study, DP114/2.. @@davidsalmon5405

[@davidsalmon5405]

@@DB7PHiL Thanks Phil. I mis read the post. I didn't realise he asked about the car at 5.45 !

[@DB7PHiL]

He asked that question a year ago, so probably found out by now! :) @@davidsalmon5405

[@davidsalmon5405]

@@DB7PHiL opps I missed that to. Put it down to age ? I had only just seen this post of this video on the AMOC site

[@williamvolkmann8658]

thank you fb for blocking me .. now i can get smarter by watching u tube ,, not dumber playin fool on fb