2016 Geneva motor show!

Andy Palmer is a car guy. Even in his former life as chief planning officer at Nissan he was focused on producing the most relevant and exciting products he could. By his own admission, though, his first job when he arrived at Aston in 2014 was accountancy.

“The DB11 project started in 2012, it’s a Marek Reichman creation, he deserves all the credit for how the car looks,” Palmer told us at the Geneva show, just minutes after the DB11’s unveiling. “What the car didn’t have was a business case and funding, so that’s what I focused on initially.”

As it stands, it’s paid off handsomely, because Palmer has secured around £700m in funding – enough for the next four years, by which time the debts will be paid.

“Aston has always been about getting enough money to get to the next car, but that doesn’t work because this industry requires a cadence of cars,” he explained. “Ultimately the money I’ve raised gives me DB11, Vantage, Vanquish and DBX. After that I’ve got free cash flow so I can invest in the three that come after that. Seven cars, seven years.”

Pretty jam-packed schedule isn’t it? The new Vantage is due in 2017, will be based on a cut-down version of the DB11’s all-new bonded aluminium chassis and will be the first model to feature the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 bought from AMG. “The DB11 and new Vantage both look like Astons, but side by side they don’t look anything like each other,” said Palmer. “I wanted the ride and handling to reflect that so Matt Becker has tuned the DB11 so you can drive 500 miles and still be fresh, whereas the Vantage should knock your fillings out.”

In 2018 we’ll see the next Vanquish – essentially a DB11 turned up to, erm, 11. Expect close to 650bhp from the new 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 and a more aggressive slant to the styling. Then, in 2019 we’ll see the Welsh-built five-door, all-electric DBX crossover – Palmer’s two-birds-one-stone model that will reduce the average fleet emissions and attract more female buyers to the brand.

Beyond that the other three new model lines are “crystal clear” in Palmer’s head, but he’s not letting on. What we do know is the Lagonda brand will continue its resurgence, so our educated guess is one large and one small saloon, as well as a range-topping successor to the One-77.

But wait, there’s more. Aston’s special ops department, referred to by Palmer as his “Q division”, will be tasked with producing two special runs every year. Palmer defines a special as cars like the GT12 and Vulcan, models with production runs of “no more than 100 to 150 units, or sometimes as low as one.”

“They are our provenance cars. We’ve made less than 80,000 cars in 102 years, but when Gaydon and St Athan are up to full capacity we will be building 14,000 or 15,000 a year,” He explained. “That’s a very different place, so we want to make some cars which are the future DB5s. They let us experiment with things we wouldn’t necessarily do on full production cars. A lot of aero on DB11 comes from the Vulcan.”

And the DBX won’t be the only EV in Aston’s arsenal either. An electric version of the Rapide, previewed by the RapideE concept late last year should be ready by 2018 and ditch the 6.0-litre V12 in favour of 800bhp to 1000bhp-worth of batteries and electric motors. It’s Aston Martin, Jim, but not as we know it.

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RFX45 said:

Nissan IDS Concept

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RFX45 said:

Nissan IDS Concept

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Wr said:

what are these?

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SinnerP said:

 I was stomping on my virtual brake when they were trying to back out onto the driveway...

Is that a Liberty Walk kit?

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SinnerP said:

 Yeah, that's what I meant!  Trying to back out, but stuttering forward!   

It's crazy how much better it looks with that kit.  The other Lambo, by comparison, looked so meh! 

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MikeTysontheKiller said:

RFX45 said:

Nissan IDS Concept

View media item 1937045

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was this inspired by the kobe adidas shoe?

**** is ugly as hell, jesus christ :x

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Anyone with a pulse wants Ford’s 600-horsepower GT supercar, but only a select few will actually get a set of keys. While the car is expected to cost around $400,000, money won’t be the only issue. It seems Ford won’t let just anyone buy a GT.

Taking a page from Ferrari and its limited-edition supercars, Ford will employ a vetting process for prospective GT buyers, according to The Detroit News. Online applications will be accepted beginning this month, and Ford reportedly wants to give priority to owners of the previous GT, and those who will actually drive the new car, rather than flip it or stash it away as an investment.

The application “will be lengthy and ask a number of questions,” according to the Detroit News report. As previously hinted at by online chatter, that will include how many Ford vehicles the applicant has previously owned, how often they plan to drive the GT, and even how active they are on social media.

Related: Ford GT falters in Daytona 24 Hours debut

Buyers will also reportedly have to sign a legal document saying they won’t sell the car for a certain period of time, preventing people from taking delivery and then flipping the valuable supercars for a quick profit. Ferrari has implemented rules like this on past models like the LaFerrari and Enzo, but that didn’t prevent them from showing up on (very posh) used-car lots shortly after deliveries began.

Caveats like this are far from unusual when it comes to limited-edition supercars. With the F50, which was leased to customers rather than sold outright, Ferrari included a provision preventing owners from loaning their cars to media outlets for testing. When it launched the LFA, Lexus prioritized buyers it thought would put the biggest spotlight on its brand.

Ford still hasn’t said how many GTs it plans to build, but the best guess so far is about 250 units per year, over one to two years. That means there won’t be many build slots for what are sure to be a ton of applications.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/ford-gt-application-process/#ixzz43E378taw
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