Aston Martin boss: ‘real estate and furniture are the next specials’

Get ready for more Aston Martin… buildings. Not massive houses shaped like a V12 Vanquish – though that’d be both amazing and lightly terrifying – nor flats powered solely by rip-snorting V8s. No, super exclusive residences designed to match the exquisitely powerful British supercar lurking in your garage.

The storied carmaker already has its name on a plush high-rise in Miami – just like Porsche, Bentley, Mercedes-Benz and even Pagani – as well as a couple of private residences in New York and Tokyo.

Speaking at a media briefing last week, ex-Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark said he’d changed his mind on so-called ‘brand extensions’. “Perfumes, watches, baseball caps, t-shirts… minimal revenue, lots of dust collected in the corner of dealer showrooms, no real value,” he said.

“Tribal merchandise, I call it. Which works really well in motorsport, but if you look at all the cashmere and leather and bags and stuff that companies have done, it never transforms the performance of a car company.

“Cars tend to do that really well,” he added.

However, when it comes to real estate and design, customers are “much more open” to brands moving into those spaces than before. He notes his old company Bentley and its ‘Home’ collection: “Tens of millions of euros in revenue per year, bigger than some of the fashion brands that also do furniture.”

It’s because these customers see brands as ‘social badges’, said Hallmark, and therefore the house has to be at the ‘same level’ as the car.

There’s another angle, too. “Imagine a day when cars will not be allowed in cities – well, buildings are, and so is furniture,” he said. “I would argue real estate and high-designed, high-end objects are the next specials.” We’re still imagining that Vanquish-shaped house.