I Might Have The Perfect Mass Market Product To Change Aston Martin’s Fortunes

It seems like Aston Martin has never been out of trouble for very long.

Since the seventies, the firm most famous for making the DB5 of everyone’s favorite secret agent and the King of England’s DB6 Volante has teetered on the verge of extinction. They went into receivership in 1974, got revived and then struggled again, were given a huge cash infusion by an American Big Three, and then set adrift once more to their current state of peril.

I’m sure there are numerous ways that this storied 112-year-old brand can be turned around, but the one solution that I think we all dread might be the only one that will work.

Shaken And Stirred, Then Shaken Again

Few things seem as destined for failure as a boutique car maker that isn’t a division of a larger, mainstream automotive conglomerate. From Ferrari to Lamborghini and Bentley, the ability to lean on the development resources and cash coffers of giant OEMs has helped them to refresh product lines, be profitable, and stay afloat even in a down economy.

Aston Martin is not currently in that position. They’re owned by a consortium of various investors with deep pockets, but the ability to make money selling $250,000 SUVs and even more expensive ultra-low production cars is obviously not there. It’s even worse when those cars are actually not selling well at all. The company lost $366.1 million in 2024, even higher than the $303.6 million it lost the year before. Currently, their debt is at around $1.27 billion and rising.

I’ve seen images of some of the numerous products that Aston Martin is supposedly going to release over the next few years, from a hybrid supercar to a $500,000 new Lagonda. They all sound and look pretty interesting, but not one of these things sounds like products that will sell in more than a few hundred to a few thousand, if they’re very, very lucky in a market crowded with other established exotics. Remember, Aston hasn’t been under the big Ford umbrella since 2006, so there are no parts bins to raid. With development dollars to amortize, profits don’t sound promising. They’ll just be bleeding money from more wounds.

With Aston Martin sales down to barely 6,000 units a year in a time where even Ferrari and struggling Maserati each sell over twice that much, they’re reminiscent of Maserati right after Citroën relinquished ownership of them in the mid-seventies. Purchased by Alejandro Detomaso, the legendary car builder certainly knew a bit about marketing and making money in the difficult exotic car business. He’d sold the striking Pantera with easy-to-service Ford drivetrains through Lincoln-Mercury dealerships and had developed his own executive-style Deauville sedan and Longchamp coupe to move in higher volumes than his mid-engined sports car. Detomoso’s plan for Maserati involved the same tactics; a strategy that bore the Quattroporte III and, ultimately, the infamous Biturbo.

Now, don’t go off branding this Maserati-for-the-masses as a total miss. Our Jason Torchinsky recently defended it in a post that explained why it was anything but a total dud:

The Biturbo was also the first production car with twin turbos, and, more importantly, it was Maserati’s first real attempt to make something even close to a mass-market car, and while it wasn’t entirely successful, it defined a path that so many exotic carmakers rely on today to stay in business: have something that’s more accessible (think all those Porsche and Lambo and, yes, Maserati SUVs) so money can be made, and supercars can be built.

Alejandro DeTomaso bought Maserati in 1976, and was determined to make something regular-rich people could afford instead of crazy-rich people, and he succeeded, if you look at the numbers. Think about this: when DeTomaso bought Maserati in 1975, that year the company had built 201 cars. You know how many Biturbos were sold? 40,000. I think he accomplished what he set out to do.

Modern Maserati wouldn’t exist without the Biturbo, no matter what horror stories you think you heard from your dad’s friend’s dentist’s ex-squash partner’s older brother. These put Maserati on a path to actually staying around (you know, roughly) and are compelling cars, period.

Forty thousand cars! Honestly, had the reliability been even a little bit better, I think the Biturbo could have been an even bigger hit and given those sterile BMW 325e and stodgy Benz 190Es a solid headache. Look at the inside of this thing, and you can just smell the leather and rich walnut of these pictures (and burning oil and electrical smoke, but still).

Yeah, I know what you’re saying now. “Oh, Lord no, Bishop…you can’t mean that Aston Martin should make their own Biturbo, are you?” To quote James Bond (driving an AMC Hornet instead of an Aston in Man With The Golden Gun), “I sure am, boy!”

Is It A Coincidence That It’s Called The Double O Seven?

While the consortium that currently owns Aston Martin includes a Canadian billionaire and a big chunk of Saudi Arabian money, there is one actual car company with a 17 percent stake: Chinese auto maker Geely, which also has a controlling interest in European car builders like Volvo, Polestar, Lotus, and Smart.

Geely is arguably foremost among many EV makers that most Western car brands are terrified of, with good reason. Their cars are advanced and extremely inexpensive next to what can reasonably be done outside of China. Geely has a series of sub-brands, including the oddly named luxury division called Zeekr.

Founded in 2021, Zeekr has already made half a million cars, including partnering with Waymo to develop autonomous taxis. As an example of Zeekr’s technology, one could look at their 007 Luxury Sedan. It features self-driving with LIDAR and twelve high-definition cameras, but I’m not really interested in that. What excites me is that with the availability of all-wheel drive, it has a combined total of 687 horsepower and can hit 100 kmph in 2.87 seconds.

What’s more impressive is its ability to charge up to a 600-kilometer range in a mere 15 minutes—not much longer than it takes Mercedes Streeter to tank up whatever monster pickup she’s convinced a Big Three to loan her today. Suddenly, the issues people have with EVs are a distant memory. The cost? If you’re a Western OEM, you don’t want to know. How is it possible to offer all of this for a starting price of $38,000?

Obviously, with tariffs and other expenses, this car would likely sell for significantly more in any nation outside of China. But still, that kind of money seems low enough that you could add in a lot of hand labor and customization with super-premium materials and still get something to sharply undercut the price of anything Aston could even dream of making right now.

An Aston Martin that’s a rebadged, cheaper car? It’s been done in recent memory. The absurd Toyota/Scion iQ-based Cygnet was more of a regulations dodge than a serious attempt, but regardless, Aston wasn’t too proud to make that move.

With such exceptional performance, that Zeekr 007 would seem to make it an ideal candidate for a new entry-level Aston Martin, and an EV one at that. I’m not necessarily suggesting a simple badge-engineered Chinese car. Naturally, Zeekr would need to do some major work on the 007 to become something worthy of the royal family. I think I have the perfect Aston Martin for Geely to use as an inspiration.

It’s Called ‘Saloon Car’, Not Sedan, You Yank Trash

As nice as Aston Martin’s coupes have been over the last century, their saloon cars have had a unique and possibly even greater appeal. The one that stands out most for me was the impossibly-advanced-for-the-time Lagonda, first shown in 1976. Love it or hate it, you can’t ignore this William Towns-designed masterpiece.

More recently, Aston presented the dramatic 2010 Rapide sedan with chassis and underpinnings from the DB9.

However, to me, the most striking of all of them was an uber-exclusive sedan called the Taraf from 2015. With a tapered nose and tail and crisp lines, if you ever wondered what a modernized in-house Towns Lagonda “tribute” might look like, this was your chance to see it.

I have to say that it’s one of the most beautiful sedans ever built, and the interior is just as nice.

The most disappointing part of the Taraf was that few people would get the chance to see one ever, much less own an example. Based on the Rapide, only 120 of these bespoke jewels were hand-built and offered for the price a cool $1 million each.

Even a decade on, the Taraf looks fresh and timeless. Wouldn’t it be nice to revisit this aesthetic on something everyone in the top five percent tax brackets could afford and not just one percenters? Let’s get to work on the new Aston Martin Viscount.

Alibaba Martin?

Proportionally, the Taraf follows the very low-and-long layout of the original 1976 Lagonda, so the taller profile of the Zeekr 007 poses some problems for our design of the Viscount. I’ll try to compensate by adding some length front and back, with a slight wheelbase increase by moving the front wheels forward a bit. At the same time, I’m going to keep the greenhouse (glass area) of the Zeekr 007 and the basic doors with a reskinning that alters the shape a bit to pick up on the line from the Taraf that runs from the headlights all the way down the length of the car.

The Taraf’s nose would be kept almost intact for the Viscount; this grille from the 2015 boutique car is not the same as the current Aston look, but in some ways, that would help to keep it differentiated from the latest batch of more expensive, low-volume cars. Actually, I lied; I hate that Billy Bass face on current Aston Martins that looks like it’s about to mouth out “Take Me To The River,” so I’d come up with any excuse to do something different. There, I said it. Still, sales numbers of the latest models with this massive grille seem to prove that I’m not alone.

From the animation below, you can see how the Viscount is remarkably close to being more or less the same car as the Zeekr.

The C pillar is now solid and flows back to an elongated tail that tapers slightly about the trunk..I mean “boot”. The taillights are sunken into a recess on the back just like the Taraf.

Now, the animation to show you how things have been altered:

Certainly, the Viscount is no longer recognizable as a Zeekr, which would be hard to do when virtually nobody outside of China knows what a Zeekr even is anyway. It’s got an elegant appearance that would of course be enhanced by hand-rubbed paint of many coats and stainless steel trim to give buyers that something extra they want to impress the other members at the club.

I simply can’t leave well enough alone, so I’d like to see Aston offering the Viscount in other limited-edition versions as well, with different body styles like the hatchbacked Viscount Gran Turismo and, of course, the Viscount Gran Tour, a Whole Foods run-ready station wagon.

Inside, the Taraf had the expected lavish interior fittings that the Viscount could easily try to simulate in a still-handcrafted but more mass-produced way. Let’s take another look at that limited edition Aston’s cabin:

Wow, so fancy. Still, there’s nothing there that couldn’t be easily duplicated for far less in our Aston Martin Viscount. Geez, look at the exposed seat rails in that Taraf above; a million bucks and you couldn’t make some kind of covers? My guess is that you could have either a bench seat in back or divided seating with even a refrigerator between them.

I would, of course, change the dated-looking DB9 instrument panel display for something with a large screen fully enclosed by a curved leather-covered surrounding that disguises it. You’d have a delightful mix of technology, like the HUD display, and still an analog timepiece at the top of the center stack. The interior would be bespoke within some limits, so you get the Aston experience but at the lower price point.

When people heard that they were going to turn a Chevy Nova into a Cadillac, we didn’t expect something as nice as the first Seville but were pleasantly surprised. That 600-horse Zeekr sure ain’t no Nova, so maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all?

A Taraf With Tarriffs?

“Well”, you smugly say, “I bet that ‘Zeekr Martin’ won’t have the quality of the Taraf”. I agree: I’m pretty sure the Chinese car would be far better. Period tests of the Taraf mention less-than-great ride quality as well as wind noise and road roar; you simply can’t get a car fully sorted when you’re only making 120 examples and aren’t a division of a giant like Ford to lend a hand with development. Besides, Aston probably didn’t care since the people dropping a million bucks on a Taraf were likely not going to drive it at all, much less to work and kid’s soccer practice for 120,000 miles. The Zeekr 007, on the other hand, sold over 40,000 units in its first year of 2024; you can imagine there’s been a lot of improvements and tweaks already done. Zero to sixty in 2.87 seconds and ultra-fast charging? Don’t kid yourself: that Zeekr is some serious kit.

The US currently has a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-built cars, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop the Viscount from coming here. The parts could be sent to the UK for assembly and finishing or something like that, but honestly, even at double or triple the price it sells for in China, the Zeekr would likely be a reasonable deal in America in the sub-$200,000 range. For a car with the Zeekr’s performance, hand-crafted interior, and legendary brand name, it would seem to be a recipe for success, or at the very least an income-stream car that would help to fund some of the batch-of-100 specialty cars they want to build.

Hey, even the reviled Cadillac Cimarron sold over 132,000 examples over seven years. I’m sure Aston Martin would kill for numbers like that; they certainly need it if they expect to see another hundred years.

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