20 Jul 07
DB4 was the first car built at Newport Pagnell
They've seen owners come and go, they've seen the plant get spruced up and then decline several times and finally, under Ford, get the significant investment needed to produce the prestigious Vanquish. But now, 2,590 Vanquishes later, that's all over, and the site looks likely to become housing, although the familiar old buildings fronting Tickford Street will be retained in whatever new development finally gets the go-ahead.
So how did it feel to be the man who drove the final Vanquish off the line, through a curtain and up on to a ramp in the factory-closing ceremony? Clarke, an electrician, admits that he was extremely nervous and woke up at 3am, fretting about the possibilities for disaster.
Gaydon is now Aston's only factory
'It's a powerful car and if I got it wrong and came off the ramp then I'd be on You Tube before the end of the day,' he said. But of course it turned out just fine. Like so many of his colleagues - make that former colleagues - he's a skilled, dedicated craftsman, who takes an extraordinary amount of pride in his work. He's retiring now, like a lot of the Newport faithful. Others have already moved to Gaydon, or are looking for more local jobs.
Arthur Wilson is a long-serving engine development specialist who started before DB4 production began in 1958 and retired in 2000. He said he was glad that his departure had come at the same time that Aston stopped developing engines at Newport Pagnell. 'I live quite close, and you could hear engines running on the test bed from my house. I would have hated to be laying there in bed listening to them and thinking "Oh no, what have they done to my engines?"'
