10:12 am, May 3, 2024
Aston Martin remains committed to the traditional dealer model as a switch to an agency setup would effectively turn sites into ‘prep centres’.
That’s according to Alex Long, the firm’s director of product and strategy, who told Car Dealer that ‘the best model is to maintain a traditional franchise’.
He added that the brand wouldn’t make the switch to an agency model as it feels like ‘you were almost asking dealers to hand over cars like a prep centre’.
Speaking at the launch of the new Vantage in Seville, Spain, Long stated that ‘physical facilities are absolutely part of what we want to do.’
Aston has recently established a new ‘Q’ site in New York, where customers can visit when they want a higher level of customisation for their cars.
However, even during the process, Long says that ‘it does start with their local dealer, and their local dealer is then hand holding the entire journey – their relationship is with their familiar local dealer and they can take care of all the aftersales and service’.
Long added that there was ‘no concern’ from the dealer network given Aston Martin’s recent set of financial results which saw the firm’s pre-tax losses double to nearly £140m in the first quarter of the year.
‘At the moment they [dealers] can see that growth will happen into 2025 which we see as a really big year in terms of turning,’ Long said.
‘The important thing is that the business starts to generate cash at that point because the [production] volume is up to a critical level
‘The high investment phase we’ve gone through to get the sports cars and the DBX refresh is complete and we move into an execution phase.’
He added that the streamlining of Aston Martin’s production process – which sees multiple lines compressed into one – wouldn’t have an effect on staff numbers at the firm’s Gaydon headquarters and that it was ‘recruiting to expand’.
As part of that expansion, Aston recently boosted production with 400 new recruits in Gaydon.
