Advantage Aston Martin

With little automation, the British carmaker's new assembly plant is all about hand-built excellence.

They don't build Aston Martins like they used to-and that, said Jeremy Main, Board Member for Product Development and Motorsport, is a very good thing: “We have changed into a different sort of company. Today, we have 200 highly qualified and widely experienced engineers; three years ago we had 20. In 1994 we built 43 cars; this year the total will be 1500 and we will reach 5000 by 2005.”

That upward curve owes to the advent of the new V12-equipped DB9 2+2 range-which saw Job One in January-and to the AMV8 Vantage two-seat coupe and convertible, slated for MY2006. In global terms, Aston Martin, part of Ford's Premier Automotive Group (PAG), will still be very small. But in terms of its own expansion, the changes it is undergoing are phenomenal. In fact, the British-based company claims it is “the world's fastest-growing car company.”