Luxury automaker Aston Martin revealed its new Vantage model on Tuesday, as it pursues a turnaround strategy designed to return it to profitability and establish a possible stock market flotation.
The central England-based company, famous for making the sports car driven by fictional James Bond, is on its way this year for its first pre-tax profit since 2010, stimulated by sales of its new DB11 model.
With the Vantage, Aston Martin wants to reach complete capacity of 7,000 sports cars at its Gaydon plant in 2019, which would be the most automobiles it has produced for 10 years or more, underscoring how important success of the brand-new model is.
“It’s important fiscally due to the fact that it is the automobile that truly moves us into that favorable free cash flow territory, however I believe it was also important industrially since you are now talking about a plant that is full,” CEO Andy Palmer told Reuters at the company’s headquarters.
The streamlined two-seater model, which the company states will stick out from competitors partially due to its simplified design, will cost a bit more than 120,000 pounds in Britain and $150,000 in the United States.
Aston is also constructing a new factory in Wales, where its first sports utility vehicle, known as the DBX, will roll off the assembly line from 2019.
But British automakers are anxious Brexit could introduce checks and barriers that would decrease production processes and add additional bureaucratic costs.
Palmer, who said earlier that his biggest concern was the imposition of non-tariff barriers, said he was relying on a transitional agreement that would apply after March 2019, when Britain is due to formally leave the European Union.
