Aston Martin
Aston Martin are a well known maker of luxury sports cars. They are probably most famous as the maker of James Bond's cars. Over the years the company has had many ups and downs and has had to recover from bankruptcy more than once. However through it all they have maintained an excellent reputation for top quality cars.
The Aston Martin company was founded in the early part of the twentieth century by a couple of partners who had an interest in racing, in particular hill climbs. In the early days they raced cars that were made by other people and paid for it by also selling and doing servicing on those other manufacturers cars. Eventually they decided that they could build a better car by themselves and set out to do this. They got their first car built just in time for World War One to start. This prevented them from putting the car into production and the equipment from their factory was taken over to make airplane parts.
After the war the company was founded with the intention of building racing cars, this time for Grand Prix racing. They also sold a small number of road cars in order to make the company profitable. The early Aston Martin racing cars where very successful on the track however by the mid twenties the company was bankrupt and went out of business.
The Aston Martin company was revived shortly afterwards by a group of investors who were looking for a car they could install their new engine in. The new owners had designed a new engine that they intended to sell to other manufacturers for use in their cars. However when the Aston Martin company became available they bought it and put the car back into production with the new engine. Unfortunately the company wasn't any more successful financially under the new owners and there would be several other owners of the company over the next fifteen years. The only thing that saved Aston Martin from going out of business was the Second World War. Once again they were called on to make parts for airplanes and this is what kept them afloat.
Following the war Aston Martin would begin a period of strong sales. New ownership made the decision to stop focusing on racing and on to producing luxury sports cars. This approach proved to be the key to making the company profitable. Despite the fact that Aston Martin was enjoying strong sales the owners eventually sold out to Ford because they realized they wouldn't have the resources to compete with the larger manufacturers. Under Ford's ownership a number of new models were produced and sales increased dramatically. Unfortunately Ford fell into serious financial trouble and sold off Aston Martin, since then sales have slowed but the company does have some new designs in the works that they hope will turn things around.