Aston Martin V12 Vantage Dbs-carbon Black Edition, 2011 on 2040-cars

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Aston Martin's lifeline buys carmaker time as SUV hits road

Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll and investors have rescued Aston Martin with a 500 million pound cash injection that analysts say will help stabilize the British carmaker whose first sport utility vehicle (SUV) is set to hit the road. Stroll agreed to buy up to 20% of the 107-year-old company and will become executive chairman of James Bond's automaker of choice, which has gone bankrupt seven times in its checkered history. A consortium led by Stroll will invest 182 million pounds($239 million), whilst major existing shareholders - primarily Italian and Kuwaiti private equity groups - will be part of a rights issue to raise 318 million pounds. "It likely gives them enough liquidity to tide them over for a couple of years," said Charles Coldicott, Redburn equity research analyst. Outgoing chairwoman Penny Hughes, who will be replaced by Stroll, spelt out the degree of trouble the firm has been in after core sales fell last year. "The difficult trading performance in 2019 resulted in severe pressure on liquidity which has left the company with no alternative but to seek substantial additional equity financing," she said. "Without this the balance sheet is not robust enough to support the operations of the group." Now Aston will need to turn the financial lifeline into part of a sustainable plan as it delays investment in electric vehicles and cuts its operating costs. A key future milestone includes around 1 billion pounds worth of debt due to mature in 2022. The company also suffers from lower gross margins than rival Ferrari, according to analysts at Jefferies, who have said scaling up is just as important as extra capital. Key to the company's success is its first foray into the lucrative SUV market, a late entrant compared to many rivals such as Volkswagen-owned Bentley and BMW's Rolls-Royce. Aston has built a new factory in Wales to make the model, known as the DBX, which it hopes will attract more women to the brand and some buyers to purchase both it and a vehicle from its traditional line-up. With the DBX model not due to roll off the production line until the second quarter of this year, the firm has taken the cost with only some of the benefit so far. Based in central England, Aston said earlier this month that it already had around 1,800 orders for the car which will retail for 158,000 pounds in Britain, a "materially better" rate than for any previous models.

Aston Martin proves the battery-electric Rapide E prototype can drive

On April 2, 2015, we wrote a report detailing an electric version of Aston Martin's Rapide sedan that could launch in two-to-three years. Today, January 25, 2019, we are here to post a video of the electric Rapide E prototype driving on its own for the first time. Chalk that long wait up to Aston's high bar of making it feel like a V12, the fact that it's Aston's first EV, and the company's thorough testing regimen. President and CEO of Aston Martin Andy Palmer took to Twitter to share with his followers "a moment of Aston Martin history." The video showed the first validation prototype of the Rapide E, the electric variant of the four-door performance car, moving under its own power. This was no Tesla Roadster warehouse video showing its incredible performance. It was simply the first footage of the Rapide E in slow action in a parking lot. ....and by coincident on 21/01/2019, at 8:14pm, another piece of @astonmartin history was made...... but quite what will remain a tightly held secret for now — Andy Palmer (@AndyatAston) January 21, 2019 This past September, Aston Martin officially announced it would build a limited run of 155 examples of the Rapide E. Co-developed with Williams Advanced Engineering, the Rapide E uses two electric motors to make 610 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque. It has a top speed of 155 mph and can do 0-60 mph in less than four seconds. Its WLTP range target is said to be over 200 miles, and an hour of charging is good for 185 miles, using a 400V, 50-kW charger. Aston says the car's 800V battery system can also be charged with a 100-kW+ charger at a rate of over 5 miles per minute. In addition to the video, Palmer commented that a second mark of Aston history occurred, but that it will remain a "tightly held secret for now." Expect the first Rapide Es to launch in the fourth quarter of 2019. Related Video:

Rare 1958 Aston to be auctioned in Tennessee

Decaying Aston Martins are showing up on the auction block all over the world. The final, original DBS recently went up for bid in the UK, and to go up for sale on the other side of the Atlantic, a 1958 DB Mark III was recently found wasting away in a Tennessee garage. "I didn't know much about it, except it was old and worth some money," said owner Tammy Maxwell to Clarksville Now. Her husband bought the Aston in Hawaii in 1975 and carried the car along with him until the family settled in Tennessee. He originally intended to restore it but an illness got in the way. Now, the vintage coupe is crossing the auction block in Cumberland Furnace, TN, on April 11 through Auction World Gallery. This example is in very rough shape, though. The paint and trim are gone from the entire front end, and the interior is a rat's nest of parts. There's no mention of whether the powertrain is intact, although a crankshaft is visible sitting in the boot and possibly a carb on the passenger seat. It's going to be a big project to get this Mark III back on the road. According to Aston Martin, the company built just 552 examples of the DB Mark III, and 462 of them were the coupe body style shown here that featured a hatchback. Power came from a 2.9-liter inline-six routed through a four-speed manual gearbox. The car also grabbed a unique footnote in pop culture history as James Bond's car in the book Goldfinger, rather than the DB5 in the film version.