Our Reporter
MERCEDES-BENZ is set to take a sizeable stake in Aston Martin. For Mercedes, the appeal in owning 20 percent of what remains, despite recent travails, among the world’s most-famous sportscar brands is obvious. And for Aston, which has been lurching between crises, access to Merc’s advanced powertrain technology while facing increasingly tough emissions standards is a lifeline. Since Aston already uses both AMG’s 4.0-liter V8 and the Mercedes-Bosch electronic architecture in all its cars meant salvation was unlikely to come from anywhere else.
But the press conference after the announcement also gave a chance to ask questions to both Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian billionaire who bought a sizeable chunk of Aston last year and is now the company’s executive chairman, and also Tobias Moers, former AMG boss who has recently become Aston’s CEO.
The new boss’ previous role suggested that he came to Aston with some foreknowledge of the new deal, but Moers denied it with a categorical “absolutely not.”
Shortly before he left Mercedes, he was allegedly involved in a boardroom bust-up when he was told AMG would ultimately have to replace its beloved V8 with a four-cylinder hybrid. He is definitely Aston’s man, not Mercedes’ – and Stroll continues to own a larger stake than the one the Germans are building.
But Aston is also set to take a significantly different path to the one it is on, with the target of selling 10,000 cars annually – it managed 6,000 last year – with Stroll admitting that a large number of those are likely to be SUVs.
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