Aston Martin announced that it was selling the design and tooling for its Vanquish model, but it didn’t specify who it was sold to for £20-million or around $26-million. Now, a new report indicates that the buyer was, in fact, low volume car manufacturer Morgan. Morgan has since announced new models. The math seems pretty simple here, right?
It was initially believed that either Mansory or Ares Design made the Purchase, not Morgan.
Automotive News quotes Andy Palmer, the Aston Martin CEO, as saying "We turn down about 80 percent of opportunities that come to us. This one looked good.” The company apparently agreed to it after receiving "reassurance about the way the car was executed.”
Currently, Morgan sells three main models: the Three-Wheeler (the only one available for purchase Stateside), the Plus 4, and the Roadster, but in the past, it has had a wider range to choose from, often including more modern models alongside the old-school ones.
Morgan is not a company that’s foreign to borrowing platforms and engines from other manufacturers. Take the Aero 8, a model launched way back in 2001 and built until 2010; during the 2015 Geneva Motor Show, Morgan officials reportedly said the manufacturer would launch a more modern version of it in the near future, and this Aston Martin-based model could be it.
The old Aero 8 have a BMW-sourced V-8 engine, as well as manual and automatic transmissions from ZF, although no official mention that its platform could be derived from something else was ever made. It could have been a similar deal to the one Morgan is now believed to have signed with Aston Martin, only this time we have more information on the matter and are able to make more connections.
Further Reading
Read our full review on the 2018 Aston Martin Vanquish S.
Read our full review on the 2015 Aston Martin Vanquish.
Read our full review on the 2015 Morgan Aero 8.