[6] Aston Martin has held a royal warrant as purveyor of motorcars to Charles III (as Prince of Wales and later as King) since 1982,[7][8] and has over 160 car dealerships in 53 countries, making it a global automobile brand.

[13] The old 3.6-acre (1.5 ha) facility in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, is the present home of the Aston Martin Works classic car department, which focuses on heritage sales, service, spares and restoration operations.

[23] The two had joined forces as Bamford & Martin the previous year to sell cars made by Singer from premises in Callow Street, London where they also serviced GWK and Calthorpe vehicles.

Most were open two-seater sports cars bodied by Bert Bertelli's brother Enrico (Harry), with a small number of long-chassis four-seater tourers, dropheads and saloons also produced.

[32][33] In 1947, old-established (1860) privately owned Huddersfield gear and machine tools manufacturer David Brown Limited bought Aston Martin, putting it under control of its Tractor Group.

In 1972, David Brown paid off all its debts, said to be £5 million or more, and handed it for £101 to Company Developments, a Birmingham-based investment bank consortium chaired by accountant William Willson.

The worldwide recession, lack of working capital and the difficulties of developing an engine to meet California's exhaust emission requirements – it stopped the company's US sales – again pulled Aston Martin into receivership at the end of 1974.

At this point, he and Minden had brought in investor Alan Curtis, a British office property developer, together with George Flather, a retired Sheffield steel magnate.

[43] Six months later, in September 1975, the factory – shut down the previous December – re-opened under its new owner as Aston Martin Lagonda Limited with 100 employees, and planned to lift staff to 250 by the end of 1975.

[45] The new owners pushed Aston Martin into modernising its line, introducing the V8 Vantage in 1977, the convertible Volante in 1978, and the one-off Bulldog styled by William Towns in 1980.

[50] In January 1981, there having been no satisfactory revival partners, Alan Curtis and Peter Sprague announced they had never intended to maintain a long-term financial stake in Aston Martin Lagonda and it was to be sold to Pace Petroleum's Victor Gauntlett.

[51] Gauntlett bought a 12.5% stake in Aston Martin for £500,000 via Pace Petroleum in 1980, with Tim Hearley of CH Industrials taking a similar share.

[52] As trading became tighter in the petroleum market, and Aston Martin was requiring more time and money, Gauntlett agreed to sell Hays/Pace to the Kuwait Investment Office in September 1983.

Cubby Broccoli had chosen to recast the character using actor Timothy Dalton, in an attempt to re-root the Bond-brand back to a more Sean Connery-like feel.

[55][56] In May of that year, Victor Gauntlett and Prince Michael of Kent were staying at the home of Contessa Maggi, the wife of the founder of the original Mille Miglia, while watching the revival event.

Despite problems over the previous acquisition of AC Cars, Hayes saw the potential of the brand and the discussion resulted in Ford taking a share holding in September 1987.

[57] In 1988, having produced some 5,000 cars in 20 years, a revived economy and successful sales of limited edition Vantage, and 52 Volante Zagato coupés at £86,000 each; Aston Martin finally retired the ancient V8 and introduced the Virage range.

Expected to have few changes before its introduction in 2005, the Vantage brought back the classic V8 engine to allow Aston Martin to compete in a larger market.

[84] On 1 September 2008, Aston Martin announced the revival of the Lagonda marque, proposing a concept car to be shown in 2009 to coincide with the brand's 100th anniversary.

[88] The contract manufacturer provides dedicated facilities to ensure compliance with the exacting standards of Aston Martin and other marques, including Mercedes-Benz.

[90] Italian private equity fund Investindustrial signed a deal on 6 December 2012 to buy a 37.5% stake in Aston Martin, investing £150 million as a capital increase.

[97] On 2 September 2014, Aston Martin announced it had appointed the Nissan executive Andy Palmer as the new CEO with Bez retaining a position as non-executive chairman.

[123][124] After "completing a turnaround for the once perennially loss-making company that could now be valued at up to 5 billion pounds ($6.4 billion),"[125] and now reporting a full-year pre-tax profit of £87 million (compared with a £163 million loss in 2016) Aston Martin in August 2018 announced plans to float the company at the London Stock Exchange as Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings plc.

[10] In the same year, Aston Martin opened a new vehicle dynamics test and development centre at Silverstone's Stowe Circuit alongside a new HQ in London.

[133][134] On 31 January 2020 it was announced that Canadian billionaire and investor Lawrence Stroll was leading a consortium, Yew Tree Overseas Limited, who will pay £182 million in return for 16.7% stake in the company.

[138][139][140] Swiss pharmaceutical magnate Ernesto Bertarelli and Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team principal and CEO Toto Wolff have also joined the consortium, acquiring 3.4% and 4.8% stakes, respectively.

Citing a study by Polestar, the report stated that electric vehicles would need to be driven 48,000 miles (77,000 km) before they would have lower overall CO2 emissions than a petrol car.

After the rights issue, the Saudi fund will have a 16.7% stake in Aston Martin, behind the 18.3% holding by Stroll's Yew Tree consortium while the Mercedes-Benz Group will own 9.7%.

In return, Aston Martin will make cash payments and issue a 3.7 percent stake in its company to Lucid, worth $232 million in total.

[205] Also in July, a Lego version of James Bond's DB5 car was put on sale,[206] and an Aston Martin-branded watch was released in collaboration with TAG Heuer.