Aston Martin Underframe Production Facility

Aston Martin has incorporated a dedicated underframe production facility within the company’s headquarters at Gaydon, near Warwickshire. All aluminium and composite underframes for Aston Martin’s V8 Vantage will now be manufactured within this operation.
The new facility fuses modern technology with hand craftsmanship and further underlines Aston Martin’s serious intentions for growth, bringing the entire V8 Vantage production process in-house.
Aston Martin Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Ulrich Bez commented: “This new facility gives us greater flexibility. One of the strengths of our company is being able to react quickly to our customers requirements - with our world class manufacturing facilities at Gaydon and our dedicated engine plant in Cologne, we could now consider doing smaller production runs of different derivatives.”
Located within the existing Gaydon manufacturing operation, the underframe production facility required implementation of a new assembly system, incorporating riveting stations, geometry fixtures, process treatment ovens, robotic adhesive application and robotic measurement. The move also created work for an additional 95 production employees, who hand build the underframes for the V8 Vantage.
The Aston Martin underframe is one of the most structurally efficient in the world, taking into account strength, torsional rigidity and weight. It has double the rigidity of many rivals, as well as being lighter, resulting in superior handling and agility.
Each V8 Vantage aluminium underframe – which weighs just 183kg – takes around 24 hours to produce, with three shifts of skilled technicians working continuously. Owing to those adhesives employed, once underframe production starts it must be completed. The process uses high strength structural adhesives to bond lightweight aluminium and composites into an extremely rigid underframe, with the design incorporating 150 aluminium extrusions, castings, sheet sections and superformings.
Emphasising Aston Martin’s commitment to quality, two unique vision systems are employed, each incorporating eight cameras that scan each component prior to assembly and ensure that rivets and studs are fitted correctly. An automated Coordinate Measuring Machine is also used within the inspection process at the end of production, checking approximately 300 points on every underframe.
Frank Grimley, Manufacturing Engineering and Underframe Production General Manager said: “This move extends our manufacturing competence and flexibility, resulting in the complete manufacture of V8 Vantage being brought in-house to Gaydon.”
The bonded aluminium underframe is the V8 Vantage’s backbone, the skeleton to which all the mechanical components are either directly or indirectly mounted. Drawing on the experience pioneered in the Vanquish and latterly the DB9, the V8 Vantage underframe is made entirely from aluminium. Die-cast, extruded and stamped components, bonded together using high strength structural adhesives, supplemented by mechanical fixing, using self-piercing rivets.
The underframe facility is now fully operational in support of V8 Vantage production, with deliveries of customer cars in the UK and Europe commencing from quarter four 2005.







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