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Aston launches certification program for historic cars

After 102 years in business, Aston Martin has an in-house program to provide factory certification to the products it has made for more than a century. The Aston Martin Assured Provenance program is a way for owners to have their classic cars examined by the gents at Aston Martin Works at Newport Pagnell, and then - if successful - be assessed one of four levels of certification. Owners pay a fee to have their car looked over by in-house experts who perform a digital scan and then examine all of the car's visuals and mechanics. Those records are then given to the Sanctioning Committee, another group of experts that decides which level, from Platinum to Bronze, should be awarded to the vehicle. The owner pays another fee if the car get certified, after which said owner gets a photo book of the car, the certificate in a presentation case, two sets of plaques for the instrument panel and door sills, and a USB with the digital record of the car. The program is open to original vehicles and those reworked by Aston Martin. The press release below has more. Related Video: ASTON MARTIN LAUNCHES ASSURED PROVENANCE RATING FOR CLASSIC CARS 11 September 2015, Gaydon - Aston Martin is today unveiling an authoritative new Assured Provenance certification programme which, for the first time in the brand's 102-year history, comprehensively assesses the background of its heritage sports cars. Created to offer a true blue riband service to heritage car owners and collectors, and drawing on the unrivalled knowledge of a committee of authoritative Aston Martin experts, the pioneering Assured Provenance certification programme is administered and run by the brand's world-renowned in-house heritage car facility – Aston Martin Works. The first official authentication programme to be provided in-house by Aston Martin, the new scheme offers four levels of verification to take into account not simply all-original examples, but also sports cars that have been modified by Aston Martin itself over the years. As part of the painstaking procedure of examination and authentication, all cars submitted to the process will undergo a digital scan which will be verified and held in a secure archive for future reference. Every car will be assessed at Aston Martin's internationally renowned heritage restoration, service and repair facility – Aston Martin Works at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire – where they will undergo a thorough visual and mechanical investigation.

Aston Martin seeks ‘big brother’ despite first profit in years, IPO talk

Aston Martin just reported that it earned $121 million (or GBP87 million) in 2017, its first profit in eight years, and it's preparing for a possible initial public offering, eyeing a valuation as high as $6.95 billion (GBP5 billion). It has a strategy to begin converting its fleet to hybrid and electric powertrains. Nevertheless, the low-volume British luxury marque says it needs a helping hand to survive the wave of autonomous driving technology sweeping the automotive industry. CEO Andy Palmer tells Bloomberg it's looking for a "big brother" partner to help it with the billions of dollars in capital requirements posed by the dawn of driverless cars. "We are making a new kind of company, a company that can survive on 7,000 to 14,000 very highly priced, very profitable cars a year, but it can survive because of its partnerships," Palmer told Bloomberg TV. "It can be very profitable on that 7,000 to 14,000 cars a year but only by having a big brother that can help it out." Palmer said Aston Martin already has a partnership with Daimler AG, which owns a 5-percent stake in the company, to develop autonomous capabilities, but more help is needed. One assumes he is envious of competitors like Rolls-Royce and Bentley, which benefit from the corporate parentage and financial resources of BMW and Volkswagen, respectively. Sales grew 48 percent in 2017 to nearly 5,100 units, Aston's highest sales volume in nine years, on the strength of the DB11 sports car, which starts at $211,995. It was enough for Palmer to proclaim in a release, "The financial turnaround of Aston Martin is now complete." While it shops around for a sugar daddy, Aston Martin is busy building a new factory in Wales, set to open in 2019. It has launched new models like the DB11 Volante and Vantage, plus the limited-production DB4 GT Continuation model. Further out, the company is building 155 examples of its first electric car, the RapidE, due in 2019, and it's developing an electric version of the DBX crossover, also for 2019. Palmer has said Aston Martin will offer all six of its vehicles in hybrid variants by 2025, with 25 percent of its vehicles to be fully electric by the end of the 2020s. Related Video: Image Credit: Aston Martin Aston Martin Autonomous Vehicles Electric Luxury aston martin rapide aston martin vantage aston martin db11 aston martin dbx aston martin db11 volante

Aston Martin Vanquish 25 by Callum begins Ian Callum's next act

In June, Ian Callum retired from his post as Jaguar's design boss. In July, the man with an elegant and luxurious public resume extending more than two decades started Ian Callum Design with a few former colleagues. Callum said the full-service design and engineering house would create and comprehensively upgrade vehicles, and that he'd "like to take some of the cars I've designed and maybe redo them a little bit." That initiative starts with the Aston Martin Vanquish 25, a thorough rework of the original Vanquish Callum built from 2001 to 2007, when Ford counted the English brand in its stable.  With the goal being to "make the Vanquish the Grand Tourer for the 2020s," the broad strokes remain — as it should be, seeing how much they still appeal. More than 100 overall detail changes begin with the redesigned front fascia, with a sharper-edged upper grille sitting above a larger lower intake. Projector headlamps give way to four high-intensity LEDs, and the lower fog lamps are replaced by carbon fiber vents to channel airflow to the front brakes. An "intimidating" mien starts with dark grille strakes supplanting the chrome bars of yore, the dark mood continuing with the one-piece carbon fiber window surround and carbon fiber hood vents and fender vent strakes. Gone are the scalloped sills, replaced by convex carbon fiber rockers that blend into the new curve of the lower rear fenders. In back, new taillights rest atop a new bumper that wraps around a large diffuser with integrated exhaust pipes. The cost-cutting Jaguar XK side mirrors — Ford owned Jaguar at the time, too — are gone, newly designed units with built-in turn signals taking their places.  When we drove a 2005 Vanquish in 2015, we wrote that while the greater part of the coupe held up to time, the interior did the opposite. Callum has fixed that, turning the original coupe's blocky, vertical center console into a sloping waterfall unit in carbon fiber. At the top of the center console, a removable Bremont pocket watch. Below that, no more Jaguar switchgear, but an eight-inch media display touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, carbon fiber buttons and aluminum dials. A thinner steering wheel and reshaped paddle shifters sit ahead of a dash cluster designed by watchmaker Bremont.  New front seats with deeper sculpting sit lower in the cabin, clothed in the same cross-stitched Bridge of Weir leather as the rest of the cockpit.