Slideshow: Get a Peek at What Production is Like for the DB11
Not only is driving an Aston Martin DB11 immensely enjoyable, watching them get made in Aston's Gaydon facility turns out to be oddly satisfying.
Enter the 36 Chambers
The inside of an Aston factory looks just like you hope it would. Motor1 published this video of the inner workings of Aston Martin’s Gaydon production facility going about the business of building DB11s, calling it "a 30-minute swan song to the Oddly Satisfying subreddit." The Aston factory is like a hospital crossed with the set of Battlestar Galactica. Men and women in white shirts or spotless full-white suits, hats, and gloves glide around the cars with the concentration of diamond cutters. Seeing the video helps one understand just how your money is being spent, and why Aston wants so much of it.
Pin Drop
The first thing you'll notice is how quiet the facility is, there's no stamping machine pounding away at ear-splitting levels in the background as workers in hard hats and protective ear muffs scurry around a line that never pauses. Instead, business goes about calmly and methodically and you get the feeling you could almost hear the lights buzz. And those lights. Every light in the place was designed with a special purpose in mind. The quantity and variety of illumination is consciousness-expanding, from the wall of fixtures in inspection rooms to the flashlight a worker holds as he seemingly searches for the tiniest imperfection in the dark-hued finish of a DB11.
The Smoothness
A good portion of the half-hour video concerns itself with the war against those surface imperfections, and the variety of polishers, clay bars, cloths, and cleaners used is every bit as wide as the range of lamps used to examine them. Workers wear white gloves with only the necessary finger-tips cut out in an effort to reduce smudges and other organic contamination. One such technician checks panel gaps with a special non-marring tool. Astons aren't just about the engines and the feel of the road, they're about every little detail.
Probot
Being the Sci-Fi set that is is, the facility has its share of robots doing what they do best—giving repeatable results and doing the heavy lifting. Specialized, autonomous, forklift-like robots transport the bodies and chassis from workstation to workstation, made even eerier by the fact that they don't need lights to see where they're going, so often they are traversing pools of darkness. One of the most impressive robotic displays takes place in one of the paint rooms. After each slow, measured pass with a paint sprayer, the automated arms accelerate suddenly to snap into a different plane, before laying down another steady swath.
The Human Touch
Although the manufacturing process incorporates the latest in tech, it's striking how much of the process is carried out by humans. There's a man who applies sealant to structural panels before riveting them to subframes held in very precise jigs, while pieces of the leather interior are shared labor affairs—a person feeds strips of hiding into a perforating/embossing machine meanwhile somewhere else in the plant a row of ghostly unmanned sewing machines stitch door panels as the table beneath them moves. The DB11 represents peak Aston Martin, whether one opts for the 600 horsepower 5.2-liter twin turbo V12 or the also-twin-turbocharged 503 horsepower 4.0-liter V8. Watching this video might make Aston drivers notice all the little things that were done, by humans and robots, to ensure that nothing distracts from the ultimate grand touring experience.