Aston Martin has signed an extension on its engine supply agreement with Ford, according to media reports. The deal will reportedly ensure the supply of Cologne-built V8 and V12 engines for another five years.
The move suggests the VH platform, which underpins Aston Martin’s core model line-up of Aston Martin Vantage, DB9 and Vanquish, will be produced for another five years at least.
Aston Martin said that it does not comment on supplier agreements.
Last month, it emerged that Daimler is in discussions with Aston Martin to supply components and offering technical assistance. However, as any deal with Mercedes would take some years to be phased in, the Ford engine supply would clearly be required for some time to come. Retaining the Ford engines means it's also likely that the units will have to be re-worked to meet upcoming EU6 pollution regulations.
Ultimately, any Mercedes deal could extend to platform sharing, possibly including structure underpining the SLS AMG replacement. The new Mercedes, which will be smaller than the current model, will be positioned as a Porsche 911 rival.
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Why not think outside the box?
How about four 1.0 EcoBoost motors engineered together?! A 4.0 quad-turbo V12..?
Hmmm ...
Just hope the remapping to satisfy the European Commission's tree-huggers doesn't adversely affect the engines ...
Well the Aston V12 is two
Well the Aston V12 is two Ford V6's (as used in the Mondeo ST220, S and X type Jags) that got a bit of a makeover and stuck together, the original design of the V6 was carrried out by Porsche and finished by Cosworth, and the V8s are reworked previous gen Jag units. Yes they have been extensively modified, and are fairly decent, but they are not exactly handcrafted works of art like an AMG engine.
Citytiger wrote: Well the
Agreed. But Jaguar have proved with the F-Type that old components can be brought together to make something new. Aston need the funds to follow suit, and make something new out of the VH platform.
The new Vanquish may be a fine car in its own right, but it feels like a DBS facelift, sharing the same character and emotions as its predecessors. There is too much price increasing and not enough engineering at Aston at the moment.
But you couldn't...
You couldn't walk in to a Ford garage and get it serviced! Yes, they used the Ford V6 as a starting point, and why not when it's a fine engine with all the engineering carried out on the block, and built an Aston engine up from it. What they did was sensible and the result was brilliant; an engine to suit an Aston Martin. Powerful, but smooth.
But I guess you've been reading the same poisonous journalism which is the bane of the UK car industry. I think it was that terrible Penny Mallory who dismissed the V12 engine because it's distant cousin is in the Mondeo. And if you follow her then you're really at the thin end of the wedge.
Assess the engine on your own terms. Drive it. And draw your own conclusions. You may find you have a different opinion from those non-entity journalists (of which I hope Autocar doesn't ever employ).
And those Duratec V6
And those Duratec V6 powerplants were excellent engines. I still drive a 1999 Mondeo 2.5 V6, and having tried lots of other cars I can say, that there are more powerful ones, many consume less fuel, but very few tick all boxes such as this one: linear power delivery, smooth, decent fuel consumption, reliable and lovely noise at higher revs.
And let us not forget, that the One-77 has currently the world's most powerful naturally aspirated engine.