Aston Martin arrives in St Athan with a very slidey video. We go behind the scenes
Hanger 1, MOD St Athan, Vale of Glamorgan. About ten miles west of Cardiff. In a little under three years’ time, Aston Martin will be building cars in here.
There will be people and machinery, infrastructure, logistics, components and, at the centre of it all, a production line, down which will flow the forthcoming DBX SUV and something wearing a Lagonda badge. But that’s not until early 2020.
By the time you read this they will have started tearing up the floor in here. That’s a crying shame. It’s polished concrete, smooth, reflective and untouched since the RAF moved out a few years back.
Before all that happened, Aston had a much better idea – to use this astonishing facility to make a film. TG was invited along to see it all happen.
Now, we don’t want to spoil the plot of Aston’s film. You can watch that here.
But Aston drafted in two of its racing drivers, Darren Turner and Nicki Thiim, plus chief vehicle attribute engineer Matt Becker, and then quite the most jaw-dropping line-up of metal I’ve seen this side of Pebble Beach.
In total, it’s £65million of metal, a substantial chunk of which is accounted for by the DBR1 in pole position in this picture and the DB4 GT Zagato opposite. Respectively, they’re valued at £20 million and £15 million.
Needless to say they weren’t used for the skidding-around-a-hanger shots.
But further down the line the cars were still astonishing for their rarity, condition and the mere fact of their all being here at the same time in the same place. From left to right: wedgy Lagonda parked up next to Vanquish, Le Mans DBR9 next to One-77.
There were also James Bond cars (DB5 and DB10), racing cars (Vantage GT3, Aston Martin Lola Le Mans), the CC100 concept car, the Taraf, Virage, V8 Vantage, DB2.
And if it wasn’t there (DB9 and DB7, for instance), it was in another building across the way.
The filming called for some nerve-wracking shots – Matt Becker wheelspinning the Vulcan up between these two super-valuable lines of cars, synchronised drifting in the hangers…
Here, the Virage, Vantage V600 and original V8 Vantage pound through narrow hanger doors at 60mph, chased by a matte black Nissan Navara with filming Russian arm.
Cameramen risked permanent lung damage filming the 435bhp V8 Vantage starting up.
Here, old meets new as a DB5 and Lagonda flank the new turbocharged Aston Martin DB11.
There was even a cameo for one of Aston Martin’s more controversial cars.
Cameras were pointed in every direction. Some of these might not have been recording for the actual film…
Even the racing drivers got snap happy.
Being a modern photo shoot, a drone was used, too.
At the end of the day many, many skid marks were left on the floor. None of them by the DB5, I hasten to add.
In other words many cameras were pointed at things – including me (yep, I’m there in the background with videographer Neil Carey). We made our own little behind the scenes film that you’ll be able to watch in the next week or so.
It took two whole days to shoot, and Darren, Nicki and Matt had to get into the swing of ‘acting’.
Not just ‘driving’, but actual ‘walking’ and ‘talking’. They took to it pretty quickly, despite the repetition needed for different camera angles, lighting, sound etc.
To get all the sequences they needed took a huge crew – about 60 people in total – plus military levels of organisation and planning. The catering alone was a logistical nightmare, but everyone could be sat down and fed.
It’s not like Aston hasn’t got a lot of space to play with to accommodate all these people and cars. The St Athan facility that Aston will now be spending £200 million to convert into a production facility that will employ 750 people and churn out 7,000 cars per year consists of not one, but three super-hangers.
Built for the RAF to service their fast jets in, they could accommodate something like 48 Tornados at a time. Each measures 178 metres long, by 64 metres wide and 20 metres tall. To save you doing the maths, that’s 11,000 square metres, or expressed another way, 2.7 acres. For one hanger. And Aston has three.
It’s safe to say St Athan’s super-hangers haven’t seen anything like this before – and never will again. Because now the lovely polished, squealing floor is no more. But that’s fine, because it’s getting ready for something even more exciting and far more important to happen – the next stage of Aston Martin’s future.
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