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Aston Martin’s ambitious plan revealed

3 March, 2016

At the 2016 Geneva International Motor Show, being held over March 3–13, Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer announced plans to refresh Aston Martin’s entire line-up, as well as sharing plans to add three new models to the range by 2020.

Aston Martin is looking to not just retain the heritage of ‘beautiful, powerful, handcrafted cars’, but also future-proof the brand in a changing motoring landscape. The new plan for Aston Martin is built on four product pillars: sports cars, a new crossover, saloons, and a growing range of specialist-series limited-volume vehicles.

The first of these changes is the DB11, which was released in early March in Geneva, with a barnstorming 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 putting out 539hp/620Nm. 

The next release will be Aston’s ‘sports crossover’, the DBX, which is to be built at a brand-new production facility in Wales.

We’re looking forward to the arrival of the DB11 in New Zealand, which will apparently be towards the end of 2016.

ROTARY CHIC

6 September, 2024

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”

Tradie’s Choice

30 August, 2024

Clint Wheeler purchased this 1962 Holden FJ Panelvan as an unfinished project, or as he says “a complete basket case”. Collected as nothing more than a bare shell, the rotisserie-mounted and primed shell travelled the length of the country from the Rangiora garage where it had sat dormant for six years to Clint’s Ruakaka workshop. “Mike, the previous owner, was awesome. He stacked the van and parts nicely. I was pretty excited to get the van up north. We cut the locks and got her out to enjoy the northland sun,” says Clint. “The panelvan also came with boxes of assorted parts, some good, some not so good, but they all helped.”