Aston Martin

Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is an English manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Steered from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated with expensive grand touring cars in the 1950s and 1960s, and with the fictional character James Bond following his use of a DB5 model in the 1964 film '' Goldfinger''. Their sports cars are regarded as a British cultural icon. Aston Martin has held a Royal Warrant as purveyor of motorcars to the Prince of Wales since 1982, and has over 160 car dealerships in 53 countries, making it a global automobile brand. The company is traded at the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. In 2003 it received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. The company has survived seven bankruptcies throughout its history.

The headquarters and main production of its sports cars and grand tourers are in a 22-hectare (55-acre) facility in Gaydon, Warwickshire, England, on the former site of RAF Gaydon, adjacent to the Jaguar Land Rover Gaydon Centre. The old 3.6-acre facility in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire is the present home of the Aston Martin Works classic car department, which focuses on heritage sales, service, spares and restoration operations. The 36-hectare (90-acre) factory in St Athan, Wales features three converted 'super-hangars' from MOD St Athan, and serves as the production site of Aston Martin's first-ever SUV, the DBX. Aston Martin plans on building electric vehicles on both its Gaydon and St Athan factories by 2025.

Its Formula One team is headquartered in Silverstone, with a new factory set to be operational by 2023. The factory features three interconnected buildings and is based in a 30-acre site directly opposite the Silverstone circuit. The Aston Martin brand is increasingly being used, mostly through licensing, on other products including a submarine, real estate development, and aircraft.

History

Founding

Aston Martin was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. The two had joined forces as Bamford & Martin the previous year to sell cars made by Singer from premises in Callow Street, London where they also serviced GWK and Calthorpe vehicles. Martin raced specials at Aston Hill near Aston Clinton, and the pair decided to make their own vehicles. The first car to be named ''Aston Martin'' was created by Martin by fitting a four-cylinder Coventry-Simplex engine to the chassis of a 1908 Isotta Fraschini.

They acquired premises at Henniker Mews in Kensington and produced their first car in March 1915. Production could not start because of the outbreak of the First World War, when Martin joined the Admiralty and Bamford joined the Army Service Corps.

1918–1939: Interwar years

After the war they found new premises at Abingdon Road, Kensington and designed a new car. Bamford left in 1920 and Bamford & Martin was revitalised with funding from Count Louis Zborowski. In 1922, Bamford & Martin produced cars to compete in the French Grand Prix, which went on to set world speed and endurance records at Brooklands. Three works Team Cars with 16-valve twin cam engines were built for racing and record-breaking: chassis number 1914, later developed as the Green Pea; chassis number 1915, the Razor Blade record car; and chassis number 1916, later developed as the Halford Special.

Approximately 55 cars were built for sale in two configurations; long chassis and short chassis. Bamford & Martin went bankrupt in 1924 and was bought by Dorothea, Lady Charnwood, who put her son John Benson on the board. Bamford & Martin got into financial difficulty again in 1925 and Martin was forced to sell the company (Bamford had already left).

Later that year, Bill Renwick, Augustus (Bert) Bertelli and investors including Lady Charnwood took control of the business. They renamed it Aston Martin Motors and moved it to the former Whitehead Aircraft Limited Hanworth works in Feltham. Renwick and Bertelli had been in partnership some years and had developed an overhead-cam four-cylinder engine using Renwick's patented combustion chamber design, which they had tested in an Enfield-Allday chassis. The only "Renwick and Bertelli" motor car made, it was known as "Buzzbox" and still survives.

The pair had planned to sell their engine to motor manufacturers, but having heard that Aston Martin was no longer in production realised they could capitalise on its reputation to jump-start the production of a completely new car.

Between 1926 and 1937 Bertelli was both technical director and designer of all new Aston Martins, since known as "Bertelli cars". They included the 1½-litre "T-type", "International", "Le Mans", "MKII" and its racing derivative, the "Ulster", and the 2-litre 15/98 and its racing derivative, the "Speed Model". Most were open two-seater sports cars bodied by Bert Bertelli's brother Enrico (Harry), with a small number of long-chassis four-seater tourers, dropheads and saloons also produced.

Bertelli was a competent driver keen to race his cars, one of few owner/manufacturer/drivers. The "LM" team cars were very successful in national and international motor racing including at Le Mans.

Financial problems reappeared in 1932. Aston Martin was rescued for a year by Lance Prideaux Brune before passing it on to Sir Arthur Sutherland. In 1936, Aston Martin decided to concentrate on road cars, producing just 700 until World War II halted work. Production shifted to aircraft components during the war.

1947–1972: David Brown

In 1947, old-established (1860) privately owned Huddersfield gear and machine tools manufacturer David Brown Limited bought Aston Martin putting it under control of its Tractor Group. David Brown became Aston Martin's latest saviour. He also acquired without its factory Lagonda's business for its 2.6-litre W. O. Bentley-designed engine. Lagonda moved operations to Newport Pagnell and shared engines, resources and workshops. Aston Martin began to build the classic "DB" series of cars.

In April 1950, they announced planned production of their Le Mans prototype to be called the DB2, followed by the DB2/4 in 1953, the DB2/4 MkII in 1955, the DB Mark III in 1957 and the Italian-styled 3.7 L DB4 in 1958.

While these models helped Aston Martin establish a good racing pedigree, the DB4 stood out and yielded the famous DB5 in 1963. Aston stayed true to its grand touring style with the DB6 (1965–70), and DBS (1967–1972).

The six-cylinder engines of these cars from 1954 up to 1965 were designed by Tadek Marek.

1972–1975: William Willson

Aston Martin was often financially troubled. In 1972, David Brown paid off all its debts, said to be £5 million or more, and handed it for £101 to Company Developments, a Birmingham-based investment bank consortium chaired by accountant William Willson. More detail on this period may be read at Willson's biography. The worldwide recession, lack of working capital and the difficulties of developing an engine to meet California's exhaust emission requirements – it stopped the company's US sales – again pulled Aston Martin into receivership at the end of 1974. The company had employed 460 workers when the manufacturing plant closed.Receiver is called in at Jensen Motors. ''The Times'', Tuesday, 16 September 1975; pg. 17; Issue 59502

1975–1981: Sprague and Curtis

The receiver sold the business in April 1975 for £1.05 million to North American businessmen Peter Sprague of National Semiconductor, Toronto hotelier George Minden, and Jeremy Turner, a London businessman, who insisted to reporters Aston Martin remained a British controlled business. Sprague later claimed he had fallen in love with the factory, not the cars, the workforce's craftsmanship dedication and intelligence. At this point, he and Minden had brought in investor, Alan Curtis, a British office property developer together with George Flather, a retired Sheffield steel magnate.Lagonda sets out on a new course. ''The Times'', Monday, 24 April 1978; pg. 18; Issue 60284

Six months later, in September 1975, the factory – shut-down the previous December – re-opened under its new owner as Aston Martin Lagonda Limited with 100 employees and plans to lift staff to 250 by the end of 1975. In January 1976, AML revealed that it now held orders for 150 cars for the US, 100 for other markets and another 80 from a Japanese importing agency. At the Geneva Motor Show, Fred Hartley, managing director and sales director for 13 years before that, announced he had resigned over "differences in marketing policy".

The new owners pushed Aston Martin into modernising its line, introducing the V8 Vantage in 1977, the convertible Volante in 1978, and the one-off Bulldog

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