Aston Martin to develop a platform for AMG engines
Aston Martin has been using its existing set of platforms that were developed under the Ford ownership for the British marquee. Ford had classified a special Premier Automotive Group that owned brands like Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover. Everything was sold as Alan Mulally took charge of Ford and started working towards One Ford. Jaguar and Land Rover was sold to Tata Motors, while Aston Martin has been swapping ownership. Ford along with the other American giants was suffering huge losses and that was the only way the company could have survived.
As Aston Martin had separated from Ford in 2007, they have been building vehicles independently on the same platform that were developed by Ford. However, the engine manufacturing was shared with Ford at the Cologne plant in Germany. This deal was till 2013 and after which Aston Martin signed a deal with AMG to use their set of engines.
AMG has been building several V8s and V12s and recently they have developed a new engine for the AMG GT, which will be launched next year. This is the same engine that will power the second AMG built-car the AMG GT, the successor to the SLS AMG. AMG engines are hand-built and they will be building engines for Aston Martin as the British marquee struck a deal with Daimler AG.
Most likely, the newly developed engine for the AMG GT and C63 AMG will also be given to Aston Martin and we believe we could even see the V12 powerhouse to make its way into the Aston Martins. AMG will be supplying only engines and electricals to Aston Martin for the time being. The British marquee was also keen to get the Mercedes-Benz ML-platform too, however the Daimler AG has decided to stick to only engines and electrics for the time being.
The next generation DB9 will ideally be the first car on this new platform, which will be aluminium monocoque to shed weight and even enhance the performance with reduced carbon footprint. This is the same strategy used by Jaguar and Land Rover to reduce its carbon footprint and to meet the European regulations. This new DB9 is ideally to be launched by 2016 and it will have the V8 engine from Mercedes-Benz. As we had predicted before, this engine will be the new 4.0-litre V8 bi-turbo mill that will produce close to 600bhp of power.
Being born and brought up in a family that has been a part of the Automotive industry for over seven decades, Rachit has cars in his blood. Four wheelers are his childhood love, and he has grown up playing with bolts and spanners. To add more value to this passion, he studied automobile engineering and even karted at National level competitions.
Soon after that, he got into motoring journalism- where began the process of testing and evaluating cars. He has driven a wide range of cars beginning from Tata Nano to the Aston Martins, most of the cars that are currently sold in the Indian car market. Apart from this, he has also done many long road trips, and shall continue to do so. Rachit was one of the first journalists to take a Nano across the Golden Quadrilateral.
