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John Mahoney27 Jun 2019
NEWS

Demand for Aston Martin’s first SUV will outstrip supply

Aston Martin won’t chase volume with DBX; Rapide limo won’t be replaced

Aston Martin chief executive Andy Palmer says he will artificially limit production of the new DBX SUV despite plans to double the number of vehicles the car-maker sells annually.

In an exclusive interview with carsales at the Le Mans 24 Hour endurance race, Aston's boss was quick to address rumours that he would follow the path of rival luxury brands in pursuing volume.

"I purposefully restrained production to 5000 units – for exactly that reason. There's always a tendency when you've got an order book to turn everything up.

"And when you do that, you start making mistakes in my experience," said Palmer, acknowledging the new challenges an SUV posed for the car-maker's small but well-established dealer network.

"The plant is capable of 5000 units on a single shift basis and we'll build to that. No more.

"When Lagonda comes in 2023, we'll turn it up to 7000 but we'll leave it at that, with around 4000 DBXs rolling off the line and another 3000 Lagondas."

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Reporting strong demand ahead of its launch next year, Palmer says many of the early DBXs will end up in the hands of existing owners. That said, he believes attracting new buyers to the famous British sports car brand will remain key to the SUV's enduring success.

"It helps that 72 per cent of our existing customers already have an SUV in the garage, so getting to our existing customers who are already in love with Aston is not a bad starting place," he said.

The biggest challenge, Aston's boss admits, is making an impact in markets like China and the US and educating its dealers.

"It's marketing that is the challenge, particularly with the dealer who might not have that experience of looking for a new kind of customer."

What has been fortunate to the DBX's development is Aston Martin's physical proximity to nearby Jaguar Land Rover.

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"We're lucky that we sit next door to Jaguar Land Rover and a lot of our employees over the years have moved backwards and forwards so much of the place has good SUV experience," Palmer observed.

This wealth of experience, Palmer said, should ensure the DBX will be highly competitive from day one both on and off the road and help the brand along the way to doubling today's volumes to about 14,000 vehicles a year.

Aston Martin's chief explains the 14,000-vehicle artificial cap is based on the expansion of the global high net-worth car market. Above that, he says, you risk degrading your luxury brand to ‘premium’ status.

Unfortunately, once the DBX and Lagondas arrive (7000 units) and are combined with the GTs, Valhalla and Vanquish models (7000), Palmer says there will be casualties: namely, culling the Rapide limo without a replacement.

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"We're not planning to replace the Rapide in its current form," said the Aston boss.

"The Rapide will basically be replaced by the DBX in the Aston Martin range while the Lagonda SUV and sedan will replace the new pure-EV Rapide E.

"Remember the Rapide is a Lagonda name, so it's a nice transition, if you think about it," added Palmer, who went on to explain how valuable the pure-electric fleet of 155 Rapide Es will be to the Lagonda brand as a whole.

"The Rapide E is a big fleet test for its customers. When you buy it, you sign up to be a test driver for Aston and you give us feedback on how you use a luxury car – because no-one at the moment knows how people will use one.

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"It's that knowledge that will get baked-in into the Lagonda brand. The Rapide E is the crucial bridge from a V-configured engine to an electric future while Aston Martin will become a V-configured hybrid brand," Palmer explained.

A smaller DBX or even another GT or baby supercar is also off the cards, again because of volume and lack of manufacturing capacity.

"We've currently got three sportscars being manufactured at our Gaydon plant and we're building 7000 cars – so we're already at capacity. In a couple of years' time we will add Vanquish in there too, so we're already way over our capacity.

"While it's easy to see all sort of markets we could enter it wouldn't seem to make sense to cannibalise the volume of the four cars we already make in order to sell a cheaper car.”

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