RUMOR MILL: Daimler Interested In Buying Aston Martin?

Although these rumors have been around before, they refuse to die, and there may be good reason for that. Following last year's partnership agreement that will provide Aston Martin with Mercedes-AMG technology,

it seems that parent company, Daimler, is still interested in purchasing a larger stake in the British automaker. Currently, the Germans own five percent of the company, but according to Car and Driver, they are now looking to expand that number.
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Sciros - 8/28/2014 11:13:56 AM

+1 Boost

Aston's in some trouble if it doesn't happen so hopefully it does. It's cool to be a low-volume boutique manufacturer but then you have to make lots of good business decisions and Aston's made some blunders lately that could kick its butt unless bailed out.

Car4Life - 8/28/2014 5:28:17 PM

+3 Boost

Makes sense, Aston already uses some of Benz tech and parts.

Aston has struggled in the sales department lately, while Benz had a record year for AMG products, so if anyone knows how to move performance vehicles, it's benz

222max - 8/28/2014 2:09:46 PM

+1 Boost

Pretty soon there will be no more British-owned British car companies.

ParadoX - 8/28/2014 2:21:56 PM

+1 Boost

I am sure there will be some blokes in the west midlands working out of a shed building something.

Daimler is probably looking at what VW has done with Lamborghini and Bentley. Infuse them with their technology, utilize Daimler platforms and parts to lower the manufacturing cost, etc.

Lamborghini_vs_Ferrari_Racer - 8/28/2014 6:45:16 PM

+2 Boost

An Aston built with Mercedes/AMG help will be friggin' awesome!

MattDarringer - 8/28/2014 8:06:42 PM

-3 Boost

DUHH...they will buy and ruin Aston. This is the death of Aston.

Sciros - 8/28/2014 9:09:38 PM

+1 Boost

If this doesn't happen it's likely Aston will be the death of Aston. They are in a bind right now with a significant portion of their cars soon becoming illegal to sell in the US unless updated (due to no longer meeting crash safety requirements).

Frankly it's hard to RUIN Aston Martin, a car company that sells 10 cars that all look pretty much the same (so may as well buy the cheapest one) and don't exactly have good build quality or reliability. Honestly at this point it's hard to imagine how to make them worse (and I like Astons a lot -- I just would never even consider purchasing one).

mre30 - 8/28/2014 10:57:35 PM

+1 Boost

Sciros is completely correct. It would be difficult to "ruin" Aston. I own a 2014 DB9 volante (which I have complained about here before). The build quality is terrible. The car is 18 months old and the dealer has probably incurred about $20,000 fixing warranty stuff that has broken (there was something major they had to fix, that related to shoddy construction at the factory in the UK, along with several other minor things - all of which required a flat-bed to their workshop).

Mercedes should just buy Aston and get it over with - there is no "heritage" to save.

MattDarringer - 8/28/2014 8:07:05 PM

-2 Boost

What's next? Is BMW going to buy TVR?

benzforlife - 8/30/2014 11:54:18 AM

+2 Boost

Aston always made unique cars and always had quality issues, something all British cars have always been famous for.

If Benz takes over and keeps producing unique cars like always but this time added better quality? then it's a great business decision.

But if Benz is gonna end up in that fucked-up era of their quality getting watered down like Chrysler times, then stay the fuck away from Aston.