James Bond`s new Aston Martin DBS previewed

Aston Martin plays up its Britishness, but much of 007’s new DBS is German. Emma Smith and Jay Nagley of The Sunday Times reveal the mixed blood of modern cars.

James Bond has a shiny new Aston Martin. The special-edition DBS is the quintessential British supercar for a very British secret agent. The only trouble is, under the skin it’s German.

Open the bonnet and you’ll find a V12 engine manufactured in Cologne. Powertrain clutch system components come courtesy of FTE of Bavaria, and some electronic control units are made by Siemens VDO, which has headquarters just outside Frankfurt.

Like its sister car, the DB9, steering components, suspension joints and the six-speed automatic transmission come from the German companies ZF Lenksysteme and ZF Friedrichshafen.

Yes, the DBS and DB9 are assembled here but, according to SupplyBase, an car industry analyst based in Lincolnshire, even the front seats are German, as are the crankshafts, some exterior lights and the dynamic stability control system. A few Italian, Swedish, Japanese and American parts are also thrown in.

Not only that, Aston Martin has been American-owned since Ford swallowed up the British marque in 1987 and its chief executive — Ulrich Bez — is, of course, German.

Aston Martin plays heavily on its British roots. It promotes itself as the choice of patriotic sports car lovers and even adorns its cars with a plaque saying “hand built in England”. But it is by no means the only marque to use the prestige of a badge and its national connotations to disguise the real source of the car.

“On average, car companies source about 75% of their parts externally, although it’s not something they generally like people to know about,” says Alex Graham of SupplyBase.

BMW and Audi continue to market themselves on their image of German reliability and attention to detail. But if you buy an Audi TT in the UK — slogan Vorsprung durch Technik — the chances are it was screwed together in Hungary.

Mercedes, the benchmark of German quality, imports its C-class vehicles from a plant in South Africa while its ML-class is built in the United States. Porsche builds the Boxster in Finland.

Yet research shows customers continue to associate brands with their countries of origin, even years after they have been taken over or production has moved elsewhere in the world.

In a recent study by Experian, the UK-based market research company, the majority of those questioned identified Vauxhall as a UK company, even though it was taken over by General Motors of Detroit in 1925 and production now takes place everywhere from Belgium to Thailand. The company’s last surviving UK plant is shedding 900 jobs (see panel).

Jaguar, also owned by Ford, and Aston Martin were both identified in the survey as British. Likewise Bentley, even though it is now owned by Volkswagen. Assembly work on Bentley Continental GTs and Flying Spurs is carried out in a glass-walled factory in Dresden, Germany.

“In other countries, patriotism plays an even bigger role in car buying than in the UK,” says Andrew Grant, of Synovate, a market research company. “In Italy, for example, a lot of Italians will buy a Fiat even though many Fiats are now produced in factories in Turkey and Poland.”

Likewise, more than half of German buyers opt for cars produced by German-owned companies, unaware there is a good chance their car will have been built outside Germany.

French buyers are even more patriotic; most buy French cars even though Citroën and Peugeot have plants in Slovakia — a country where car production is expanding at such a pace that it is on its way to becoming the world’s biggest producer of cars per head of population.

Volkswagen and Toyota are also shifting production to eastern Europe, where labour rates are low — £2.40 per hour for a Slovakian factory worker or £2.85 in slightly more affluent Poland. That compares with about £11.70 per hour in the UK or as much as £18.85 in Germany.

The march east does not stop at Europe’s borders, however. European, Asian and American car manufacturers are busy setting up bases in China where workers cost 90p an hour and car sales have risen from 500,000 in 2000 to 2.8m last year. The Honda Jazz became the first car assembled in China to be sold in Britain last year.

Rover cars may soon be manufactured in China by the Nanjing Automobile Company and then shipped back for sale in the UK, and Tata Motors of India is planning to sell its Indica model, based on the ill-fated City Rover, in Britain.

Last week Aston Martin pointed to its new and expanding headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, and defended its claims to Britishness. “Aston Martin is a British company but is recognised as a global sports car manufacturer,” said a spokesman.

“The company uses materials, parts and systems from the best global suppliers and the engine plant in Germany offers the best opportunity for flexibility, quality and cost-effectiveness.”

A smaller number of foreign-owned companies use Britain as an export platform. All Nissan Micras, apart from those for the Japanese market (where it is known as the March), are built in Britain.

“The Micra was designed in London, engineered in Cranfield and manufactured in Sunderland,” says Nigel Wonnacott of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

The upshot says a lot about the global nature of modern car manufacturing: a new Nissan Micra is arguably more British than Bond’s Aston Martin.

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