Year 4 pupils were in for a treat on the 7th November when they were invited by Aston Martin to visit their historic main site factory in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire
The pupils’ visit coincided with the arrival that day of King Charles III’s blue Aston Martin DBS, which had come in for its annual service. Aston Martin senior executive Justin Pearce, who gave the children a ninety-minute conducted tour of the site, showed them the car and told them that the King had driven an Aston Martin since 1969 and was among a host of VIP customers whose cars are serviced by the Newport Pagnell facility. Another highlight of the tour was the James Bond DB5 Aston Martin that began the company’s long and close relationship with Eon Productions, the producers of the Bond franchise, back in 1964 with
the film Goldfinger. The car was customized by Aston Martin, who fitted it with two front and rear machine guns, a passenger ejector seat, water cannon, and rear smokescreen. Justin Pearce told the children that Aston Martin today make a very limited number of customized retro DB5 Bond models, with all the gadgets, including the machine guns, although they cost over £1,000,000 and are not licensed to be driven
on UK roads. In addition to seeing the original 1964 007 DB5 car, pupils were shown a new 2022 customized retro model that had just been made for a private client in the Middle East.
Aston Martin was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and has, during the past century, become associated with luxury grandtouring sports cars. Justin Pearce pointed out that unlike many other sports car manufacturers, Aston Martin cars are handmade. Porsche cars, for example, are mass produced and therefore make more cars in a year than Aston Martin have made in their entire existence. The children were shown the highlights of the manufacturing process from the body-shop, to the trim shop and the paint processing and were able to ask questions as they went round.