There is no more remarkable premium or luxury manufacturer on this good planet than Aston Martin. There, I’ve said it. And I believe it. Indeed when I think of Aston Martin I think of it almost as two entirely separate entities.
There’s the Aston Martin I read about in the financial press: this is a company with almost more CEOs than we’ve had Prime Ministers in recent years, all with a vision to right the ship, but so far without the results its fans, customers and shareholders have been looking for. Instead they read stories of spiralling debt, re-financing, shares but a fraction of what they were worth at the time of the disastrous 2018 IPO while vast OEMs circle like vultures, waiting for the moment to swoop.
And then there’s the Aston Martin that makes this DB12 S. And the Vantage, Vanquish, DBX and Valhalla. I’m not going to dwell on them all because that is not the purpose of this story, but as someone who has driven at least one (and usually more) version of every major Aston Martin model produced since the DB2 went into production in 1950 with the sole exception of the 1970s Lagonda, I can tell you this: Aston Martin has never made better cars than it does right now. Every time I think of how stark is the contrast between the products it makes and the resources it has relative to rivals like Bentley with all the unimaginable financial and technological reserves of the Volkswagen Group behind it, not to mention the supply chain clout, I goggle anew. When I say I don’t know how they do it, I mean that in the most literal sense.
