the aston martin brand has undergone a
huge transformation
over the last 30 years from super spy
icons to
le mans winning hyper car building track
rats
so how did the company that was once all
about looks and style
become an endurance racer an f1 team and
a track weapon manufacturer
well actually it's the story of a toxic
relationship
and a bad breakup today i'm going to try
my hand at oem
couples therapy as we look at the story
between aston martin
and ford a huge thanks to omaze for
sponsoring today's video
you guys know we've helped give away
some pretty amazing cars like the dodge
demon
and ram trx but i gotta admit this one
right here
might be my favorite
that's right one of you has the chance
to win this 1988 bmw e30 m3 with taxes
and shipping
included this vintage bmw wasn't built
to just look cool
it was also built to go racing and with
only 27 000 miles on it
it's more than ready to hit the track or
cruise the town
so for your chance to win this 1988
bmw e30 m3 go to omaze.com
donutmedia and donate today best of all
every donation supports the skatepark
project
founded by video game and skate icon
tony hawk video game icon
more like american hero i want to meet
tony hawk
all right anyway their mission is to
fund high quality public skate parks
in underserved communities to promote
healthy and active lifestyles
so go donate for your chance to win at
omaze.com
donutmedia good luck i'm gonna go drive
this thing
[Music]
aston martin has a long and storied
history but we don't really need to care
about that right now
we'll start with the moment that really
put aston martin on the map for the
general public
and that was 1964's gold finger
james bond and the aston martin db5
machine gun their way onto the silver
screen with a silver paint job in style
for days and since then
bond has driven alfa romeos lotuses bmws
and more fords than anything else
in spite of all that when you think of
james bond's car you think of a birch
silver aston martin
you picture a grand touring coupe with
that single thin
fender vent and that tom selleck
mustache of a grill
even though some of bonds cars have
become more gadgety
more featured and even downright better
cars you can't separate bond
from aston martin remember when bond
drove a buick century and tomorrow never
dies that was kind of weird huh
but being an icon of a movie franchise
did not necessarily translate into
making
money in the 60s aston martins were hand
built using archaic
coach building methods that may be
unique and artisan but they were very
slow the db5 was produced for three
years
and aston martin was barely able to make
1000 of them
the demand was there but they couldn't
make enough to meet it this made it hard
to be a profitable business
and aston martin was sold to investment
bank consortium in 1972
then again to an american businessman in
1975 and again to an oil tycoon in 1981
and finally
it was bought by ford in 1987. now this
is when aston martin's fortune started
to change for the better in the short
term
but less so in the long term ford placed
aston martin in their new premier
automotive group which includes jaguar
lincoln
land rover and volvo think of it as
their business class lineup
ford invested into new manufacturing for
aston martin and built a new factory in
block some england for the db7 aston
martin broke production records and by
the end of its run
nearly 10 000 db7s had been built and
sold across all its variations
ford gave aston martin the resource to
be successful and the freedom to still
make cars the way they wanted to
ford really liked aston martin and it
feels good when someone tells you they
like you
and you can tell us you like us by
liking this video
but unfortunately the aston ford
relationship started to turn
and like a los angeles influencer couple
it started to become apparent that ford
was only into aston martin
for their looks trouble began with the
2006 launch of a car
seemingly unrelated to aston martin the
jaguar
xk the xk was a v8 powered rear wheel
drive coupe
that had the class and sophistication to
fit the venerable jaguar name
but there was a problem it was hard to
deny that it looked
like an aston martin if i were a
designer aston martin i'd be pretty
pissed off by this
the lead designer for aston at the time
was a man called ian
callum he designed the beautiful db7 the
db9 v8 vantage and the v12
vanquish he also designed the jaguar xk
since both brands were under ford's
premier automotive group
ford shared designers and engineers
between the brands
callum wasn't an aston martin employee
he had been a ford guy for 10 years
and while designing the db9 and the
vantage callum was officially employed
by jaguar for ford it made sense to take
the best elements of the premier
automotive group cars and share them
among all the other brands volvo wants
to do an suv
send them one of the land rover
engineers lincoln wants to increase
their safety rating
have them work with the volvo team but
for aston martin the main asset they
brought to the table was their iconic
styling
and when you let people copy that it's
no longer your styling
is it the v8 vantage and xk were
compared side by side by every car
magazine and outlet at the time
and a lot of people agreed that the
vantage still looked better but for
forty thousand dollars less
the xk was literally a poor man's aston
martin
okay maybe not a poor man but a less
wealthy man
a hedge fund manager gets an aston
martin an in-n-out manager gets an xk
but look one brand copying another style
isn't new it happens
all the time in and out of the car world
and even though there is protection
around copying your car directly
two cars looking kind of similar
shouldn't really affect the sales of
either should it
but here's where the problem was aston
martin had a pretty unique look
and if you take that look away what do
they have left
aston martins of the 2000's were not
known for their reliability jeremy
clarkson would often say that an aston
martin's natural habitat was in a cloud
of smoke
at the side of the road also they
weren't necessarily fast for the price
either if you were in the market for a
v12 powered supercar in 2005
you could get a v12 vanquish s or you
could get a lamborghini murcielago
which had a lot more power more torque
higher top speed faster 0-60
a gated manual gearbox it was
mid-engined
and it was cheaper that's crazy if you
were buying an aston martin you were
actively saying no
to better performance in exchange for
that british class and style that they
were so
well known for ford knew that the looks
were what sold astons and i'll admit
that the ford era had some of the best
looking astons we've ever seen but the
unique styling that you used to only get
by buying an aston martin
was now getting kind of diluted and if
you only want it for the looks and don't
really care about the performance
then the jag started to become a much
more tempting offer
do you see the problem here ian callum
went on to design the xj
and the f-type which both pulled styling
cues from aston martin but the most
egregious forward move
of them all was in 2013 with the ford
fusion even though ford had sold off
aston martin to the british motorsport
group pro
drive in 2007 they were still using what
they had learned from having the brits
around
have you ever looked at the redesigned
ford fusion and thought that looks like
it's trying to be a bootleg aston martin
well you wouldn't be the only one 2013
ford fusion or ford mondeo if you're not
in the states
was given a full redesign that included
the aston martin grill
ford tried to put the supercar styling
on an econo box and i will say
it does look pretty good that's because
it's a four-door aston martin
pretty hard to screw that up at first
ford buying aston martin must have
seemed like
exactly what aston martin needed to
finally show the world what made them so
special
and in a way it did just not always
on their cars now i can understand if it
sounds like i'm being hypercritical or
trying to stir up drama but i'm not just
making this up now
in 2013 people noticed there was even a
dealership ad here in la at the time
where a fusion owner
said that the last time they went to
dinner the valet said their car looked
like a
european sports car come on man it's
because ford stole it
after being let go from forward aston
martin was free from the mass marketing
and
shared workspaces of ford they were with
new british owners that wanted to make
aston's
special but this time around making a
good-looking car wasn't going to be
enough
so they did something they'd never done
before they started making their cars
really good it started with the 2013
partnership with daimler ag
otherwise known as mercedes-benz the
germans would supply their engines to
aston martin and the first car to run at
ben's power plant was the aston martin
db11 aston martin's lineup now had the
power
to back up the looks but their drive to
better themselves didn't stop there
aston martin started bringing out the
big guns after their split with ford in
2007
aston martin steps beyond being a grand
touring brand and started going after
the track car and hyper car world
the 177 was their first car with a
sticker price over a million dollars
and was powered by a cosworth v12 and
was limited to 77 units
in 2015 they released the track only
aston martin
vulcan a 2.3 million limited run coupe
with a 7 liter v12
and the coolest tail lights ever fitted
to a car since then they've announced
another halo car the aston martin
valkyrie the valkyrie is being made in
partnership with f1 team red bull racing
and is being designed by the legendary
aerodynamicist adrian newey
newey not only designed the cars that
won red bull the f1 championship four
years in a row
but he also designed six other
championship winning f1 cards for
mclaren and williams so
i think the guy knows what he's doing
and aston martin's track dedication is
paying off
since the breakup with ford they've been
on the podium eight times at the 24
hours of le mans and they've become a
title team in f1
where they've already managed to score a
second place finish in their first year
one of the major stockholders in this
new version of aston martin is canadian
billionaire
lawrence stroll stroll spent nearly 200
million dollars to outbid
geely lotus and volvo for his new spot
as
aston martin chairman in 2020. stroll
also owned a controlling stake in racing
point f1 which this year is called
aston martin cognizant formula one team
the new owners like racing so aston is
gonna go racing stroll's involvement in
the company is one of the biggest ties
to motorsport for aston martin
and sounds like it's gonna be dictating
a lot of their future the valkyrie
project that was being worked on in
conjunction with rival f1 team red bull
will continue a relatively more
affordable mid-engine car is also coming
it's called the valhalla and it looks
like
mid-engine cars are going to be a big
part of aston martin's game plan from
now on
back in the 90s aston martin was
literally getting by on their good looks
but now they're having to put in the
work and i think they're better for it
these things look awesome
look i love my fords i really do love my
mustang
but looking back at the ups and downs of
aston martin's time with ford
i think it's for the better that they
broke up thank you
very much for watching wheelhouse this
week i love doing videos
for you guys so it means a lot that you
guys watch them what do you think of
aston martin
let me know down in the comments i love
that they've gone from really stodgy
british blocks of moldet to like
painting their cars like crazy neon
colors and all that and going after the
mclarens and the porsches it's a
it's pretty awesome to see ironically i
am a red bull fan but i'm always pulling
for
lance and sebastian every weekend in f1
follow donut on all social media at
donutmedia follow me at nolanjsykes
be kind i'll see you next time