Planes,Trains and Automobiles

Lionel Motor

Aston Martin Sold for $925 Million

In 1993, the Ford Motor Company bought the European luxury car brand Aston Martin. The popularity of the brand has been boosted by the appearance of some of their vehicles in James Bond films. While the popularity of the marque increases when James Bond made it the vehicle of his choice, the brand failed to generate adequate income for the Detroit based car maker.

In the midst of the financial woes being faced by the Ford Motor Company, they have announced in August of last year that they will sell either a part of or the entirety of the Aston Martin. The company hopes that the sale of the luxury car brand will give them enough financial leverage to invest on their other brands.

There have been a lot of speculations as to who would be the next owner of the famed luxury brand. In fact, it was reported a few weeks ago that the French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH is interested on purchasing the luxury car brand. But the rumors were found out to be unfounded.

Last week though, Reuters reported that Ford will announce the sale of the Aston Martin as early as This Week. And today, the largest news provider announced that Ford is selling the British luxury car brand to a group led by former F1 racing boss from Benetton and BAR David Richards. Richards is currently the chairman of Prodrive - a Formula One racing team. Reuters reported that the group will purchase a major part of the luxury car brand for 479 million pounds or $925 million. Ford, meanwhile, will still retain some part in the brand with an investment of $77 million.

Aside from the Formula One team Prodrive, Kuwait’s Investment Dar and Adeem Investment are also part of the group which raised the $925 million to purchase a major part of the brand. Aston Martin collector and racing backer John Sinders is also a part of the group that will soon own the majority of Aston Martin.

The Aston Martin brand is based at Gaydon, Warwickshire, England. Its name came from the Aston Clinton hill climb, and from the name of one of its founder, Lionel Martin. For the most part of the 1990’s, it has been a part of the Premiere Automotive Group - the division of Ford Motor Company which combines the business operations of Ford’s five European car manufacturers. Aston Martin was the sixth brand in the group which consists of Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo Cars, Daimler, and Rover.

Since Aston Martin’s founding after the First World War, it has been beset by financial problems. One of the things they have to contend with is how to keep up with the rest of the automotive industry in terms of production. It is known that Aston Martin produces only a limited number of hand-crafted cars while the rest of the automobile producing community employs Mass Production techniques.

In 1947 though, the savior of the brand came in the form of Sir David Brown. The David Brown Limited bought Aston Martin, and then with the combined resources of the two companies, Aston Martin specialized in producing grand touring models. These famous models from Aston Martin were named using Sir David Brown’s initials.

After the David Brown era, the marque was sold and resold so many times until Ford bought 75 percent of the brand in 1987, and then in 1993, the Ford Motor Company added another band decal on their Ford fender by purchasing the entirety of the car brand.

Ford’s financial problems led them to the choice of selling a part of their Premiere Automotive Group. The company first considered selling Jaguar, Volvo, or Land Rover until finally announcing that they will be selling in part or whole of the Aston Martin brand.

About the Author

Katie Jones writes for a local newspaper and her beat involves the latest updates in the automotive industry. She is also working on her book on cars during her spare time.

Postwar Lionel 2344 NYC Diesel Problems?

I have a postwar Lionel 2344 New York Central Diesel, ABA set from 1952. I had all of them professionally restored in December. It's been running fine until now. It will barely move, and the motor sounds loud like it's running, but the engine goes slow and it can't pull anything. I've lubricated and oiled like the instructions said to, but that does nothing.

I'm using a Postwar ZW (275 watt version), and O Tubular track. Can someone tell me what is wrong? Do I need the motor replaced or was it serviced wrong? Please help!

Dirty track isn't really so much of a concern in O scale, since the currents are high enough that they burn through any crud on the track. In addition, the design of tubular rails tends to push dirt off to the side I know guys who haven't cleaned their track in 30 years and everything works great. I'm not that brave, but I do well to run a Scotchbrite over it once every six months, and don't have any problems.

Also, I wouldn't be concerned about motors going bad, as the ones in the 2344(and all other Lionels made in the '40s and '50s) are virtually bullet proof.

I can think of a couple of possibilities:

1. The 2344 has two motors. My first and best guess is that a wire has come loose to one of the motors. One motor will still run fine-as you're hearing-but the other won't run at all. The gearing is such that the wheels attached to the other motor won't turn unless the motor is turning, meaning that motor that is running will essentially be dragging these locked up wheels along. It will probably run, but not very fast and won't have any power.

To test this, put the Powered Unit only on the track, and cycle the e-unit to forward or reverse(it doesn't matter which). Then, lift up the front truck just enough so that the wheels are just barely off the track. See if the engine tries to pull away from you. Try the same with the Rear Truck. You should get the same. If it fails either one of these, you've found your problem. The fix is simple-find the loose wire and resolder it. The wires going to the motors are colored green, yellow, and blue. The yellow and blue wires go to the motor brushes(important that they be right on a two motored engine, or the motors will fight each other) and green wire is attached to the field core. If you're not comfortable doing it yourself, return it to the person who worked on it for you. Loose wires are common enough that I warranty against them for one year after I do any major work.

2. The second thing that comes to mind is that the motor mounting screws are loose, allowing the gears to come out of mesh. To test for this, turn the powered unit upside-down, and see if any of the wheels turn easily. The fix to this is to tighten the screws, preferably using a little bit of blue Locktite on the screw threads to keep this from happening again.

There are a handful of other problems this could be, but these two are far and a way the most common. Once fixed, these engines will run forever.

Lionel 6-28051 Baltimore & Ohio EM-1 2-8-8-4 Steam Engine B&O - SOLD

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.