Aston Martin Holdings (UK) Limited Full Year Results 2013

28 April 2014, Gaydon: Aston Martin Holdings (UK) Limited is today announcing full year results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2013.

Aston Martin Chief Financial Officer, Hanno Kirner commented: "We made excellent progress on a number of fronts in 2013: growing our global sales, improving our EBITDA and building further on the company's strong brand as we celebrated our centenary around the globe.

"We will, in the next few years, be implementing the biggest investment programme in our 101-year history, preparing the ground for new and exciting products in the future.

"Our strong ownership structure and strategic partnership with Daimler AG, finalised in December 2013, provides us with a solid foundation for the unprecedented investment programme that will underpin our future growth.

Kirner continued: "We are engineering a completely new architecture and technologies to ensure that our next generation of sports cars is at the forefront of design, performance and technology. The strategic partnership with Daimler AG will bring with it cutting edge electrical and electronic architecture expertise, and the shared development of world-class bespoke V8 powertrains."

In order to facilitate the biggest investment programme in the history of the brand the company's capital structure was significantly strengthened in April 2013 when experienced sector investor, Investindustrial, joined Primewagon and Adeem Investment and the other existing shareholders, confirming the value story of Aston Martin.

The 2013 results benefited from an improved model and market mix and the 13 per cent increase in revenue was supported by full year sales of the highly successful Vanquish Coupe and the launch of greatly anticipated Vanquish Volante and V12 Vantage S models in Q4. In addition the company strengthened the existing dealer network and opened in new markets, including Mexico and Thailand.

Aston Martin is embarking on a brave new future. After thirteen years basing the bulk of its lineup on the VH architecture, Aston is developing a new platform, and is partnering with Mercedes-AMG to develop a new V8 engine and electronic systems. But what will happen to the old platform and engines once the new ones arrive?

You might think that they'd be retired, but that won't necessarily be the case. At least as far as the AM11 V12 engine goes. The 6.0-liter engine was developed by Cosworth, based on a Ford block, and first appeared on the DB7 Vantage way back in 1999, but still powers everything Aston offers, save the V8 Vantage. It's evolved heavily over the past decade and a half, rising in output from 420 horsepower to 565, but Aston is one of the only British automakers still offering a V12 these days (Jaguar no longer does, Bentley's is actually a W12 and while Rolls-Royce does, its vehicles are mostly of a decidedly more sedate nature), and will surely want to carry on that legacy.

That's why Aston spokesman Matthew Clarke revealed in correspondence with Autoblog, "Our 6.0-liter V12 engine will remain, with ongoing development, at the heart of a number of our flagship models for the foreseeable future," long after the new engine being developed with Mercedes arrives. Just which models will receive the new eight-cylinder engine and which will keep the twelve remains to be seen, but we get the feeling Aston's eight-cylinder range will broaden to include more than just the Vantage.

As for the VH architecture, you can expect it to sail off into the proverbial sunset once the new platform is ready, though we wouldn't be surprised to see it phased out more gradually than abruptly. A 13-year tradition doesn't end overnight, after all.

Reports coming in from the UK indicate that Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd. has applied for trademarks on a succession of model names, starting with DB10 and extending all the way up to DB14. That doesn't mean that the DB9's successor will necessarily adopt one of those, however, as word has it that some elements within the company would rather stick with the name DB9 rather than move forward, as the company has traditionally done over the years.

Whatever it's ultimately called, the DB9's replacement is expected to be built on Aston's upcoming new platform that will replace the aging VH architecture. We're anticipating that it will also pack the new AMG-sourced turbo V8, and if it does, it could end up replacing both the DB9 and the V8 Vantage. The old DB7 that put the brand back on the map in 1994 and lasted until 2004 was offered with both a 3.2-liter inline-six and the brand's ubiquitous 6.0-liter V12.