One of Britain's iconic car makers is setting its sights on the booming Chinese luxury car market.
The clean lines of the new Aston Martin showroom in Shanghai Image: Aston Martin |
Once a car only fit for English super-spies like 007, Aston Martin's finest will now be available to the increasingly wealthy Chinese populous as the legendary car maker opens its seventh dealership in Shanghai.
Somewhere amongst the Bang & Olufsen screens, Jaeger-LeCoultre time-pieces, the cafe lounge area and the Aston Martin gift shop, the flagship showroom finds space to display 18 new models, which include the Vantage, DB9, DBS, the new Virage and the “elegant yet brutal” V12 Zagato.
The new dealership, owned and managed by vivacious entrepreneur Zheng Ting, is part of Aston Martin's plans to garner a chunk of the booming Chinese luxury car market, which exceeded expectations with over 900,000 units sold last year, and is set to reach 1.5 million units per-year by 2015, according to industry specialist J.D. Power.
Despite its bold forays into the competitive market, Aston Martin has a long way to go before it can catch German car giants Audi and BMW, who saw sales for the first 11 months of 2011 grow by 35% and 40%, to 283,600 units and 200,699 units, respectively.
Ironically, the massive demand for it's luxury autos may help China overtake Germany as the world's second largest luxury car market after the United States. Indeed, both Audi and BMW see China as the “key market” in their ongoing battle for the top spot in global luxury car sales.