Keen on a new Aston Martin? You might have to wait… and that’s just the way the brand wants it.
Currently, the wait for a DBX SUV is around 12 months. Although that’s longer than ideal, Patrik Nilsson, director of operations for Aston Martin Asia Pacific, says the brand comfortable having customers wait six to eight months for “bespoke” orders.
“What we did do during COVID was really, really minimise the stocks in dealers,” he said
“We took a very hard decision to revert back out of maybe a slightly faulty strategy before, and went back to what luxury is all about,” he explained.
“Supply doesn’t meet our demand, which is exactly how we want it… It’s a strategy, and not a consequence of any supply shortages.”
Mr Nilsson said Aston Martin expects to grow its Australian sales in 2022, having seen a 50 per cent jump on the previous year in 2021.
With 140 sales in 2021, the brand narrowly outsold Lamborghini (131). Its best seller was the DBX SUV with 61 sales, with the rest of the range’s sales broken down across the DB11, DBS, and Vantage models that are grouped together on the VFACTS sales charts.
Along with the current range, the 2022 sales figures will be bolstered by the arrival of the DBX707 super SUV to Australia in the second half of the year.
Mr Nilsson said “this year’s production is gone”, but order books are still open. Exactly how many will come to Australia in 2023 isn’t yet locked in.
“We don’t want to work with allocations,” Mr Nilsson said, “we want a demand-driven business”.
“As we see the waiting times increasing, maybe demand is peaking somewhere, then we go and ask for more production to be diverted here. The trick here is trying to make sure we’re in the sweet spot.”
The new DBX707 SUV is aimed squarely at the Lamborghini Urus and Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, with 520kW of power and a whopping 900Nm of torque from its 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine.
It’s the most powerful SUV in the world, and boasts the (equal) quickest 100km/h sprint time based on manufacturer claims.
Although it’s not going to sell in significant numbers, the Valhalla hypercar is also on track to come Down Under.
Aston Martin has confirmed the mid-engine V8 hybrid will make it to Australia, something that can’t be said for its Valkyrie big brother.
“We’ll have a couple of handfuls of the car coming in,” Mr Nilsson said.
Keyword: How Aston Martin plans to manage demand in Australia