For the past two years, Aston Martin has been manufacturing the Rapide at Magna Steyr’s facilities in Austria, but that’s about to change soon as today, the British automaker announced that it will move production of the four-door sports saloon to the company’s Gaydon headquarters in Warwickshire, UK. The company said the necessary upgrades at its Gaydon headquarters for Rapide will begin immediately with a view to begin production of the Rapide in the second half of 2012.
Aston Martin had appointed Magna Steyr as a partner to build the Rapide at its factory in Austria in 2008 with the first pre-production models rolling off the assembly line in the fourth quarter of 2009 before the luxury saloon reached full production in 2010.
“In 2008 we had facility restrictions at Gaydon which indicated that production of Rapide at Gaydon would likely compromise production of our other cars,” said Aston Martin Chief Executive, Dr Ulrich Bez. “We were not prepared to do this.”
“Now, three years on things are very different – Gaydon is more established, more flexible and more efficient. While our overall volume has not changed significantly, we now produce a far richer model mix – eight model lines (plus five variants) compared to three model lines (plus two variants) in 2008 – so Rapide production is now possible,” Bez concluded.
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