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Aston Martin gears up for its second century with a complete lineup overhaul by 2020

Aston Martin has a storied history of luxury performance vehicles and, with the reveal of the DBX crossover concept to the audience of the 2015 Shanghai Auto Show, Aston took the time to also reveal its vision of its future.

This forward thinking isn’t just based around the exotic ideas packed into the luxury GT concept, either. Dubbed “Second Century,” the plan Aston Martin has expressed is a comprehensive plan to ensure the company is as innovative and relevant in its next 102 years of existence.

Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer
Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer Image used with permission by copyright holder

While its safe to set a long-term strategy that will extend beyond the lifespan of anyone its presented to, there are plans to change how the world sees Aston Martin in as little as five years.

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With former Nissan VP Andy Palmer taking the reigns at Aston, the plan is to not only replace every model in the current lineup, but also add three new ones.

“The Second Century plan not only delivers exciting and highly desirable new luxury sports cars in the traditional sense, but also embraces new powertrain technology,” Palmer said. Specifically, Palmer addresses the fact that an electric version of the Rapide is currently being looked into, something that he feels would be we received in the Chinese market.

Aston-Martin-DBX-concept_01
Image used with permission by copyright holder

What these three new models would be is anyone’s guess, but we can only imagine that there’s a team hard at work fleshing this out as we speak. Aston wants to change everything “by the end of the decade,” and that’s not as far away as we may think it is.

We know that the DBX concept is a vision Aston is keen to push into production, though what a working version of this concept would look like is unknown. The brand has also revived the Lagonda badge to act as its hyper luxury branch, currently pulling duty in the Middle East with the Taraf as its representation. This luxury sedan, limited to 200 models, might be the basis of the second of the three additional cars.

As for the third? Well, we want to say sports car, but then again, we always want to say sports car, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed and see what Aston has up its sleeve. We love sports cars, but we also like being pleasantly surprised just as much.

Alexander Kalogianni
Alex K is an automotive writer based in New York. When not at his keyboard or behind the wheel of a car, Alex spends a lot of…
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