Aston Martin’s design chief on the DB11

Marek Reichman discusses the work that went into the carmaker’s latest grand tourer
Image: Aston Martin Lagonda Limited
Image: Aston Martin Lagonda Limited
Ashley Coates2 November 2016

It’s April 1950 and the world’s top car industry professionals, journalists and sales people have gathered at the New York Motor Show to experience the very latest offerings from the major carmakers. It was a particularly important moment for Aston Martin Lagonda, recently acquired by David Brown, who would give his name to the now legendary “DB” series of grand tourers.

The scarcity of steel in the UK meant Aston was obliged to sell into foreign markets, but the firm need not have been worried, the DB2 was a success in both America and the UK, although the limitations of hand-crafting the car in its small factory meant only 411 cars were produced. Since then, the DB series has spawned some of the most memorable cars ever built, including the Silver Birch Aston Martin DB5 used in the James Bond franchise. It’s a lot to live up to for any car designer tasked with developing the latest iteration in this iconic series.

Aston Martin’s current Director of Design was yet to be born when the first DB5s took to the streets of Britain in 1963. Marek Reichman arrived into a family of petrolheads in 1966, where the automotive interests of his brother and father inevitably influenced his future career direction.

“I didn’t really have a choice but to go into this industry,” Marek tells me, “we were always talking about cars at home. We would go on holidays where, as this was a time when you didn’t have seatbelts, I would stand up on the transmission tunnel while my brother egged my dad on to go faster and faster. You just would not do that nowadays, but that petrol injection was there from a very early age.”

Image: Aston Martin Lagonda Limited

Marek would later earn an Honours degree in Industrial Design before studying Vehicle Design at the Royal College of Art in London. His career in the auto-industry has featured wide-ranging portfolios at some of the biggest carmakers. Starting at Rover Cars in 1991, Marek went on to work as Senior Designer at BMW Designworks in California, and as Director of Design for Product, Interior Design Strategy and Process at Ford Motors. He’s had a hand in the 2003 Range Rover, the Rolls-Royce Phantom and Lincoln MKX.

10 classic Aston Martins from motoring history

1/10

He joined Aston Martin in 2005, an important time in the company’s long history. Established in a Chelsea mews house in 1913, the firm is very conscious of the transition into its second century. “The DB11 is the foundation for our second century. We had that in the back of our minds when we started to develop this model. We’ve got our foundation, and we’re now pushing forward from that”.

The connection with Aston’s lineage is evident throughout design of the DB11 but is perhaps most obvious in the car’s distinctive and imposing grill, the widest the carmaker has ever made. “It’s incredibly wide, it’s very dominant”, says Marek, “it creates the impression that the whole front face of the car is floating, hence the air intake below the grill. It’s very much about giving a floating impression and how you read it versus the road surface”.

Despite these references to Astons of old, the new DB11 is not an exercise in nostalgia. The new car is a showcase for the technologies the company hopes to use in future vehicles. When I asked Marek what he was most proud of in the DB11, it was the patented aeroblade technology that he singled out as an elegant engineering solution to what started out as a design conundrum.

“The DB4, and DB5 are very simple under-stated forms that have timeless appeal”, he says. “To get back to having that very simple centre-line section is almost impossible in today’s world of car design and engineering because of the requirements of aerodynamics. If you look at a DB4, it’s not great for aerodynamics because it has a very soft tail, and what you need is a hard cut off for the air to create the turbulence behind the car, not on top of the car or directly on the car, as that causes the back end to have more lift. So it was a case of finding a solution that would give us this beautiful centre-line section, without a horrendous deploying spoiler, or without the spoiler being part of the body form, which was there on the DB9”.

Aston Martin DB11

1/4

In the case of the aeroblade, the innovation was initiated by the design department itself. But does he ever find there’s a conflict between design and engineering? “It’s less of a challenge in compromise and more about agreeing where we are going to spend the time and therefore where we are going to put money and resources. The whole company understands who we are and what we do. We talk openly about ‘the love of beautiful’, that’s beautiful in terms of engineering, the way the cars are manufactured, the fact we’re an independent company. I’ve had fewer conflicts about wheel and tire size, and wheel to body, and material choice, than I would anywhere else. What I am leaning to is that the company understands the love we have for beautiful objects and the engineering supports that as well. When you open the hood, the layout of the engine, the body architecture even without the panels, it’s a beautiful form and shape”.

Image: Aston Martin Lagonda Limited

The technology may have moved on but there is one important area that the DB11 has in common with the DB2, and all the intervening DBs. While today’s Aston Martin factory in Warwickshire is capable of producing considerably more than the 411 car run afforded to the DB2, the DB11 is also a handcrafted car. It takes around 200 man hours to build a single DB11, or around 17 complete cars a day, according to Marek.

Having attracted widespread acclaim following its launch at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year, the first DB11s are now making their way onto out streets so it won’t be long before you can marvel at this extraordinary car in person. In the meantime, check out our reviews of the DB11, as well as the twin test, where the new grand tourer goes up against the Bentley GT Continental.

Follow Ashley Coates on Twitter @Ashley_Coates

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in