Rapide production to move to England in 2012

07 Jun 2011

Production of the four door Rapide is to be transferred from Austria to England by the middle of next year. Since the first pre-production cars emerged from a dedicated facility at Magna Steyr’s factory in late 2009, all examples have been assembled in Austria due to the then limitations of building another Aston Martin model at Gaydon. Although production volume at the company’s Warwickshire headquarters has changed little since the decision to assemble the Rapides abroad was made, the internal logistics have altered.

“Now, three years on things are very different”, explained CEO Dr Ulrich Bez, “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.”