21st May 2006 - New Aston Martin previewed
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The Sunday Times.
James Bond has a shiny new Aston Martin. The special-edition DBS is the
quintessential British supercar for a very British secret agent. The
only trouble is, under the skin it’s German.
Open the bonnet and you’ll find a V12 engine manufactured in Cologne.
Powertrain clutch system components come courtesy of FTE of Bavaria, and
some electronic control units are made by Siemens VDO, which has
headquarters just outside Frankfurt.
Like its sister car, the DB9, steering components, suspension joints and
the six-speed automatic transmission come from the German companies ZF
Lenksysteme and ZF Friedrichshafen.
Yes, the DBS and DB9 are assembled here but, according to SupplyBase, an
car industry analyst based in Lincolnshire, even the front seats are
German, as are the crankshafts, some exterior lights and the dynamic
stability control system. A few Italian, Swedish, Japanese and American
parts are also thrown in.
Not only that, Aston Martin has been American-owned since Ford swallowed
up the British marque in 1987 and its chief executive — Ulrich Bez — is,
of course, German.
Aston Martin plays heavily on its British roots. It promotes itself as
the choice of patriotic sports car lovers and even adorns its cars with
a plaque saying “hand built in England”. But it is by no means the only
marque to use the prestige of a badge and its national connotations to
disguise the real source of the car.
“On average, car companies source about 75% of their parts externally,
although it’s not something they generally like people to know about,”
says Alex Graham of SupplyBase.
BMW and Audi continue to market themselves on their image of German
reliability and attention to detail. But if you buy an Audi TT in the UK
— slogan Vorsprung durch Technik — the chances are it was screwed
together in Hungary.
Mercedes, the benchmark of German quality, imports its C-class vehicles
from a plant in South Africa while its ML-class is built in the United
States. Porsche builds the Boxster in Finland.
Yet research shows customers continue to associate brands with their
countries of origin, even years after they have been taken over or
production has moved elsewhere in the world.
In a recent study by Experian, the UK-based market research company, the
majority of those questioned identified Vauxhall as a UK company, even
though it was taken over by General Motors of Detroit in 1925 and
production now takes place everywhere from Belgium to Thailand. The
company’s last surviving UK plant is shedding 900 jobs (see panel).
Jaguar, also owned by Ford, and Aston Martin were both identified in the
survey as British. Likewise Bentley, even though it is now owned by
Volkswagen. Assembly work on Bentley Continental GTs and Flying Spurs is
carried out in a glass-walled factory in Dresden, Germany.
“In other countries, patriotism plays an even bigger role in car buying
than in the UK,” says Andrew Grant, of Synovate, a market research
company. “In Italy, for example, a lot of Italians will buy a Fiat even
though many Fiats are now produced in factories in Turkey and Poland.”
Likewise, more than half of German buyers opt for cars produced by
German-owned companies, unaware there is a good chance their car will
have been built outside Germany.
French buyers are even more patriotic; most buy French cars even though
Citroën and Peugeot have plants in Slovakia — a country where car
production is expanding at such a pace that it is on its way to becoming
the world’s biggest producer of cars per head of population.
Volkswagen and Toyota are also shifting production to eastern Europe,
where labour rates are low — £2.40 per hour for a Slovakian factory
worker or £2.85 in slightly more affluent Poland. That compares with
about £11.70 per hour in the UK or as much as £18.85 in Germany.
The march east does not stop at Europe’s borders, however. European,
Asian and American car manufacturers are busy setting up bases in China
where workers cost 90p an hour and car sales have risen from 500,000 in
2000 to 2.8m last year. The Honda Jazz became the first car assembled in
China to be sold in Britain last year.
Rover cars may soon be manufactured in China by the Nanjing Automobile
Company and then shipped back for sale in the UK, and Tata Motors of
India is planning to sell its Indica model, based on the ill-fated City
Rover, in Britain.
Last week Aston Martin pointed to its new and expanding headquarters in
Gaydon, Warwickshire, and defended its claims to Britishness. “Aston
Martin is a British company but is recognised as a global sports car
manufacturer,” said a spokesman.
“The company uses materials, parts and systems from the best global
suppliers and the engine plant in Germany offers the best opportunity
for flexibility, quality and cost-effectiveness.”
A smaller number of foreign-owned companies use Britain as an export
platform. All Nissan Micras, apart from those for the Japanese market
(where it is known as the March), are built in Britain.
“The Micra was designed in London, engineered in Cranfield and
manufactured in Sunderland,” says Nigel Wonnacott of the Society of
Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
The upshot says a lot about the global nature of modern car
manufacturing: a new Nissan Micra is arguably more British than Bond’s
Aston Martin.
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