Aston Martin opens new manufacturing facility in Wales

While Gaydon continues to be the home of the company’s sports car production, St Athan is the home of Aston Martin’s first SUV, the DBX. Full production at St Athan will begin in the second quarter of 2020, and the company will have created up to 600 new highly-skilled jobs, rising to 750 at peak production.

Dr Palmer said: “Opening our new manufacturing facility at St Athan today is a pivotal day for Aston Martin and a vote of confidence in the UK, with the facility projected to employ up to 750 highly-skilled workers at its peak. St Athan is a critical step in delivering our new car, DBX, which will be built in the new facility. The opening of St Athan is a hugely important milestone in the company’s growth plan and integral to our ambitions as a global luxury brand with a presence in all major sectors of the market.”

The search for the best personnel began as soon as the purchase of Ministry of Defence (MOD) St Athan was announced in February 2016. Aston Martin launched a recruitment campaign in Cardiff, which attracted over 3,000 applicants, and within six months the first 40 employees had been hired.

Producing world-class cars requires highly-skilled personnel so the new Welsh workforce began their careers with Aston Martin at its Gaydon headquarters, building DB11s. This core group of experts are now training new employees at St Athan as the workforce grows, ready for the start of DBX production in the second quarter of 2020.

In 2016, Aston Martin Lagonda chose the 90-acre St Athan to be its newest centre of manufacturing excellence in the UK. RAF St Athan officially opened in 1938 as the home of the No.4 School of Technical Training, which was soon expanded with the arrival of a fighter group pool the following year.

The base was home to 14,000 personnel during World War II and was used for training both ground and air crew. After the war, St Athan continued primarily as a training facility and also the major RAF maintenance base for aircraft including Vulcan, Phantom, Harrier, Tornado and Hawk. The last aircraft to be serviced there departed the site in February 2012.

Since 2016, St Athan has undergone a three-year transformation from Royal Air Force base to state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

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Phase I of construction began in late 2016 with the creation of the customer and staff reception areas, administration and management offices and the employee restaurant

Phase II got underway in Spring 2017 after the ceremonial handover of the three super-hangars that now house the new manufacturing facility from the MOD.

The final phase to fit out the now converted super-hangars got underway in late 2018, ready for pre-production to commence in 2019.

The completion of the St Athan facility means that it joins the marque’s Gaydon headquarters and its Wellesbourne and Newport Pagnell facilities as a centre of the highest quality of British craftmanship and engineering.

Revealed last month, the Aston Martin DBX will go into full production at St Athan in the second quarter of 2020. The British marque’s first SUV has been through an intensive development process, which fittingly began in the forests of Wales to test the mettle of the new, dedicated SUV platform.

Aston Martin www.astonmartin.com