The New York Times look at Aston Martin and James Bond`s connections

26-Oct-2006 • Casino Royale

Braden Phillips today writes for The New York Times examining Bond's relationship with Aston Martin.

When âCasino Royale,â the latest installment in the James Bond saga, opens next month, it will feature the seventh Aston Martin to be driven by the redoubtable MI6 spy. Itâs not the only wheels that 007 has sported (BMW, Lotus and Toyota have had a go), but letâs face it, the others felt as if they were interlopers.

Aston Martin is to James Bond as maple syrup is to Vermont. The new Bond car, called the DBS, was largely designed before the filmâs producers called, but it might as well have been tailor made, given its guiding motif: âA tough guy in a dinner suit,â as Marek Reichmann, Aston Martinâs chief designer, described it. Wonder who that could be? âWe designed it independently of the movie, but it turned out to be a perfect marriage,â he said.

Aston Martin has a mystique that many brands seek but few achieve. The DB5 driven by Sean Connery in the 1964 film âGoldfingerâ â the king of Hollywood product placements â has much to do with it. The car, like Bond, epitomized suave English masculinity. Tagged with the initials of the owner at the time, David Brown, who bought the company in 1947 to have a âbit oâ fun,â he said, the DB series scaled the heights of British hipness.

But the Aston Martin aura also comes from 92 years of history, especially its tradition of craftsmanship, still in force today. The $260,000 V-12 Vanquish S, for example, its top-of-the-line model, is made in a 19th-century building in Buckinghamshire, where horse-drawn carriages were once made. There are no robots here. Even the aerospace adhesives that are used to attach body panels are applied by hand by one person, a job that takes six hours.

At the headquarters and factory in Gaydon, Warwickshire, which opened in 2003, the other two basic models â the $110,000 V-8 Vantage and the $165,000 DB9 â are manufactured. In a nod to modernity, there is a single robot, applying the aerospace adhesives. All models are painted by hand.

Throughout its history, Aston Martin has made only 30,000 cars. (Porsche, for example, makes roughly the same number of Carreras in a year.) The company says that 85 percent of them are still used today, thanks to their quality, the availability of parts and the dogged maintenance of owners.

Despite its cachet, however, Aston Martin could barely hold the road financially after Mr. Brown sold it in 1972. During the next 15 years, it went through five owners, and many think the company would have gone under without the James Bond franchise to prop it up.

But Aston Martinâs fortunes have turned around under the wing of the Ford Motor Company, which bought 75 percent of the brand in 1987 and took full ownership in 1994. âLike other boutique brands, production costs were too high and production too low to sustain the company,â said Aaron Robinson, technical editor for Car and Driver magazine. âBut Ford spent the money, and Aston Martin has been very aggressive about growing the brand.â

Since Ford installed Ulrich Bez, Porscheâs former head of development, as chief executive in 2000, production at Aston Martin has climbed from 300 cars a year to 5,000 this year, its most ever.

With Aston Martinâs balance sheet now in shape, Ford announced in August that it would consider selling the company to pay for its costly restructuring. Aston Martin would not comment on the sale or on any potential buyers.

âWeâre doing much better now than at any time in history, and if it wasnât for Fordâs investment we wouldnât be here today,â said John Walton, Aston Martinâs vice president and head of North American operations. âOur production lineup has been strategically put together to conquer what we wanted as a percentage of the luxury sports car market. In line with that, the market of the worldâs superrich has grown, so in that respect our timing has been excellent.â

In the United States, sales of Aston Martin have increased from 123 in 1999 to 1,800 expected this year and a targeted 2,500 next year, Mr. Walton said. âNext year, America will be the biggest market for Aston Martin,â he added. âThatâs been our goal for a number of years.â

Despite its rapid growth, Aston Martin knows that exclusivity is its lifeblood. Dealers in the United States have grown from 13 in 2000 to 36 today.

âCustomers always tell me they enjoy parking their car because people say, âExcuse me, what is that?â â Mr. Walton said. âThen they get that nodding look of approval, âOh, so thatâs an Aston.â Our customers enjoy that. With a Ferrari or Lamborghini, you know instantly what it is.â

The recent surge in production leaves some devotees with mixed feelings. Larry Davis, head of the Aston Martin Owners Club for the Western United States, and the owner of a 1976 Aston Martin V8 Saloon coupe, said that membership was growing ânow that theyâre pumping out 5,000.â

âBut it only makes me feel like mine is gaining more status,â he added.

For the future, Aston Martin is coming out with the V-8 Vantage convertible in November and expects to begin production of the DBS, the new Bond car, next year. This yearâs concept car, the four-door, V-12 Rapide, remains a contender. The Vanquish S will be phased out this year in the United States but still be sold in Europe.

With the V-8 Vantage, which entered the market this year, Aston Martin has embarked on a new direction. The brandâs cognoscenti say that Aston Martins have been more sporty touring cars than genuine sports cars, âall of them were beautiful but heavy as London porridge,â as an article in Car and Driver put it last March. But the Vantage, 440 pounds lighter than the DB9 and priced to compete with the Porsche 911, appears to be rattling Aston Martinâs reputation for staid elegance.

âThis is no tweedy gentlemanâs express Ã la DB9, flaring with style and with hot-temp warning lights after a few hard laps,â the article continued, daring to pose the ultimate question: âIs James Bond man enough for this Aston?â

The question seems to apply also to Aston Martin owners, many of whom imagine themselves as 007 stand-ins. Even Mr. Davisâs license plates reads: J BOND AM, the AM for Aston Martin, of course.

Thanks to `One` for the alert.