Had a little wander around the Aston Martin Works in the glamorous part of Tickford today. And very impressive it was, too.
However, I was amused beyond description at the legendary "Special Vehicle Operations" section, probably the closest thing to Q Branch in the world. The cognoscenti refer to it as "SVO", and they can literally bespoke your Aston in any way you could possibly imagine, and a couple of ways you probably couldn't.
It sounds very impressive, but in reality it's two bays in the Works and a handful of spanner-slingers. It doesn't look any different from the normal service bays, really. You could walk past it and have no idea of what it is.*
There were a stunning array of cars there and the noise of the cars being tested was ... compelling. Yes, I should have brought my camera, I suppose, but I just forgot. Maybe next time. My abiding memory, however, was not the glorious cars without number just standing around in various states of repair, but rather of the number of buckets standing around the works to catch rain leaking through the roof. Most strange.
*Which is, of course, exactly what happened to me.
5 comments:
"the number of buckets standing around the works to catch rain leaking through the roof."
Holes in the roof courtesy of the SVO?
Now that's one visit that I really am jealous about! :(
Red white and blue festival at Codnor this weekend so if you are at a loose end pop down with a petrol bomb or two and make PC Plod and KKK wannabes see what a beautiful country Britain is.
Sounds just like the old TVR factory in Blackpool :-)
When I was traveling back and forth through Newport Pagnell many years ago, I used to pass the Aston Martin factory (actually a collection of separate factories). It was common place to see part-assembled cars being pushed from one side of the road to the other. Sounds as if little has changed since.
Morgan used to (probably still do) operate in the same way.
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