Andy Palmer, CEO, says he wants to break the duopoly between Rolls Royce and Bentley with future Lagonda models
27 Oct 2017 | 4379 Views | By Mike Duff, Autocar UK
Future Lagonda models, two of which are due to be launched in 2023, will need to have unconventional designs, according to Aston Martin boss Andy Palmer.
He believes they must break away from the usual forms adopted by the established luxury rival models from Rolls-Royce and Bentley.
“The truth is I don’t want either of ...
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Future Lagonda models, two of which are due to be launched in 2023, will need to have unconventional designs, according to Aston Martin boss Andy Palmer.
He believes they must break away from the usual forms adopted by the established luxury rival models from Rolls-Royce and Bentley.
“The truth is I don’t want either of them to be what you’d call a traditional saloon,” Palmer told Autocar. “If we just do another three-box, it’s going to be hard to break into that market. So what I’m challenging the design guys to do is to look for something that breaks that duopoly [between Rolls and Bentley] but which still has appeal to what is a relatively conservative market, and what is still very much a chauffeur-driven market.”
It is also possible that one of the cars will be a pure electric model, according to Palmer, and could share architecture with the forthcoming Aston DBX crossover.
“The large-car platform, of which the DBX is the first execution, is engineered to accept an electric powertrain,” Palmer said. “It doesn’t get that at launch, but it does during its lifetime; not necessarily in the guise of DBX, but that architecture does get an electric drive during its lifetime.”