Aston Martin AM37

[[164147]]

Harry Metcalfe has owned a Windy 37 for a number of years so he's not new to boating. No killcord and no lifejacket is more of a concern for me.

Otherwise I agree - it's a complete waste of money.

 

[petem]

No killcord and no lifejacket is more of a concern for me.

Why? Conditions were good and it's a nice heavy / stable boat. I wouldn't wear a LJ either and you will be hard pushed to find a sports cruiser of this size that has a kill cord.

 

[rubberduck]

I guess there are enough people around with more money than sense to buy this boat. My guess is that the vast majority will end up as superyacht tenders. Not sure where all the guests will sit though. Whats under the enormous teak deck given that the engines must be well aft? Personally I'll be waiting for the single engined flybridge displacement version

Along with the AM slippers no doubt !

 

[[164147]]

Why? Conditions were good and it's a nice heavy / stable boat. I wouldn't wear a LJ either and you will be hard pushed to find a sports cruiser of this size that has a kill cord.

Well you're a bit of a melon then. A 50 knot open powerboat with no lifejacket or killcord worn is just irresponsible.

 

[petem]

Well you're a bit of a melon then. A 50 knot open powerboat with no lifejacket or killcord worn is just irresponsible.

I'm not prone to irresponsibility (I wear a helmet skiing and don't ride a motorboat), but I still maintain this is pretty low risk, even at 50 knots (were they really going that fast?).

I think this one is a judgement call on the day but I wouldn't criticise anyone who feels it is appropriate to wear a LJ.

 

[jfm]

We discussed this in another thread last month but sheesh that is one lemon of a boat. The unglazed sides mean you can't see out unless standing, yet you need to sit down to view the dashboard data. When sitting down you have to look through a compound curved glass screen that is, as discussed earlier, optically like a wine bottle bottom - see 7:19. The hull porpoises a lot in the video. There's nowhere to sunbathe or have lunch and you can't easily swim - perhaps AM thought they were making a car and they just haven't "got" the fact that plenty of the fun on a boat is when you're stopped not when you're going along. It's a design lemon.

Aside from the relevance problem, the AM brand just doesn't stretch into this space - sure it is an iconic brand among road cars just as Lego is among smaller toys but it has zero cache in the world of boats that cost multiples of the most expensive cars and whose owners get their PAs to buy their cars.

I haven't seen a HM video before but he is an entertaining and engaging presenter. He seems too wowed by the product though, and especially the AM name and the £1.5m price, so he loses some objectivity. He added a whole extra syllable in Fontvieille at 0:48 .

They'll build single figures of these boats then quietly withdraw, just like XSR48

I'm with petem on killcords and LJs: that wasn't irresponsible in my book. In my 14 years boating in those very waters, and mostly at 20- 30knots admittedly, I have never once worn an LJ and doubt I ever will. I wear a killcord religiously in the tender but wouldn't in a 37 footer or bigger

 

[benjenbav]

We discussed this in another thread last month but sheesh that is one lemon of a boat. The unglazed sides mean you can't see out unless standing, yet you need to sit down to view the dashboard data. When sitting down you have to look through a compound curved glass screen that is, as discussed earlier, optically like a wine bottle bottom - see 7:19. The hull porpoises a lot in the video. There's nowhere to sunbathe or have lunch and you can't easily swim - perhaps AM thought they were making a car and they just haven't "got" the fact that plenty of the fun on a boat is when you're stopped not when you're going along. It's a design lemon.

Aside from the relevance problem, the AM brand just doesn't stretch into this space - sure it is an iconic brand among road cars just as Lego is among smaller toys but it has zero cache in the world of boats that cost multiples of the most expensive cars and whose owners get their PAs to buy their cars.

I haven't seen a HM video before but he is an entertaining and engaging presenter. He seems too wowed by the product though, and especially the AM name and the £1.5m price, so he loses some objectivity. He added a whole extra syllable in Fontvieille at 0:48 .

They'll build single figures of these boats then quietly withdraw, just like XSR48

I'm with petem on killcords and LJs: that wasn't irresponsible in my book. In my 14 years boating in those very waters, and mostly at 20- 30knots admittedly, I have never once worn an LJ and doubt I ever will. I wear a killcord religiously in the tender but wouldn't in a 37 footer or bigger

I am drawn towards liking any presenter who, describing an object generally categorised in female terms, can look into the camera and - with a perfectly straight face - utter the line, "as you'd expect, beautifully trimmed down here"

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I haven't seen a HM video before but he is an entertaining and engaging presenter. He seems too wowed by the product though, and especially the AM name and the £1.5m price, so he loses some objectivity.

Metcalfe was actually the publisher for various car magazines including Evo and Octane. He knows his stuff on cars but his lack of knowledge of boats is obvious from this vid. And yes he completely mangled the pronunciation of Fontvieille which is odd since I understand he parks his Windy in the SoF so he should know better. My first thought on seeing the curved screen is how are they going to design a wiper to clear that

 

[rafiki_]

AML should drop this lemon, and focus their efforts on securing a deal with their new Shareholder, Daimler, on securing a good deal on the GL or GR platforms, so they can put an AML shed on top, a bit of leather, alcantara and alu knobs, and roll 'em out for £150k to £200k. They couldn't make it look any worse than the Bentley, surely?

 

[jfm]

Yep I'm aware of his Evo background and car knowledge. As I say he strikes me as an engaging presenter and nice guy.

IIRC he recently bought an old princess flybridge, a 61 footer I think, replacing his windy, and he is running it as a charter boat in SofF,

Yup there are and will be no wipers. So the first bit of spray will make you have to stand up as the salt dries opaque white in the hot sun and wind, and with those daft dentist-waiting-room seats you've then got nothing to lean back on. Greaaaat. It's a design lemon with a badge that is fancy in the car world but not the yacht world. At AM HQ they must be praising the lord that Mercedes have simultaneously launched an even worse boat.

 

[MapisM]

AML should drop this lemon

I didn't second all comments along these lines so far just because it's as clear as day that the sooner AML does that, the better - for themselves, first and foremost, because even as a brand representation it's embarrassing to say the least!

But I just came across another video which made me think that anyone with more money than sense could as well consider buying a couple of these things for the price of one AM lemon - talk about bargain...!
Sorry, I didn't find a version with the EN comment, but the video is pretty much self-explanatory.

 

[Firefly625]

Yep I'm aware of his Evo background and car knowledge. As I say he strikes me as an engaging presenter and nice guy.

IIRC he recently bought an old princess flybridge, a 61 footer I think, replacing his windy, and he is running it as a charter boat in SofF,

Yup there are and will be no wipers. So the first bit of spray will make you have to stand up as the salt dries opaque white in the hot sun and wind, and with those daft dentist-waiting-room seats you've then got nothing to lean back on. Greaaaat. It's a design lemon with a badge that is fancy in the car world but not the yacht world. At AM HQ they must be praising the lord that Mercedes have simultaneously launched an even worse boat.

what a complete lemon, every car manufacturer gets the horn over producing speed boats at some point, one that actually made a few hundred boats in the end was the Healey family although I doubt it was a profitable exercise!

The one pictured above was the last model built, the Sprite, but Healey just bought the rights from Glasspar to make this model. I knew a chap who owned 1 of every model of Healey boat ever made which ran MGA & B engines including 1 of only 2 707's with the Healey 3000 straight six with a jet drive, the sad thing was once he got it beautifully restored it became pretty obvious when he finally got it in the water why it was the nail in the coffin for Healey Marine.. that was a heavy engine. He sold his collection a few years ago now and they remained for sale in a classic car dealer in Holland for a few years but most have been sold.... apart from his 707 http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C781732

 

[jfm]

Wow MapisM - you're saying the rivamare is 50% of the price of the AM37? It is a much better boat in every single respect (other than the coffee machine)

That video is shot in the Lerins islands off cannes. Nice pic of the new Ulysses at 3:36 - she was in the cote d'azur late august or early September (2016) iirc

 

[jfm]

@firefly, many thanks for that history - interesting reading. Nice white merc 50 in your picture.

 

[jrudge]

I used to have an Aston Martin.

It was a 2007 build under the ownership of Ford. Totally bomb proof, they now seem to have all sorts of quality issues.

There is a lively Aston forum on Pistonheads and the best way to get them going should one wish is to say they all look the same - they do as they are all based on the same bits.

They have never made a profit and lurch from owner to owner.

They have endorsed just about everything including kids prams and this boat is kind of fine if that is what you want, but surely at £300k not £1.3m for which you could purchase a Squadron 65!

If any business needs to kill the distractions and focus on its main problem - that the cars designs are old and due to that don't sell - it is Aston Martin.

Now I am sure they did not design the thing, but it will have taken un valuable staff and management time that could be better spent.

Daft!

 

[MapisM]

Wow MapisM - you're saying the rivamare is 50% of the price of the AM37?

I just noted that the guy mentioned 750k in the Riva video - and he was talking of EUR!
Still pricey for my tastes, but IIRC they mention up to 1.6m GBP in the AM video... :ambivalence:

PS: and it's not like Riva is known for selling at tight margins...

 

[rafiki_]

I used to have an Aston Martin.

It was a 2007 build under the ownership of Ford. Totally bomb proof, they now seem to have all sorts of quality issues.

There is a lively Aston forum on Pistonheads and the best way to get them going should one wish is to say they all look the same - they do as they are all based on the same bits.

They have never made a profit and lurch from owner to owner.

They have endorsed just about everything including kids prams and this boat is kind of fine if that is what you want, but surely at £300k not £1.3m for which you could purchase a Squadron 65!

If any business needs to kill the distractions and focus on its main problem - that the cars designs are old and due to that don't sell - it is Aston Martin.

Now I am sure they did not design the thing, but it will have taken un valuable staff and management time that could be better spent.

Daft!

Jeremy, all agreed. Please see my post#29.

Ford bailed out of Aston much earlier, when it disbanded Wolfgang Reizle's Premier Auto Group, Jag, LandRover, AML, Volvo and Lincoln. Volvo and Lincoln Premier? Anyway. David Richards brokered a deal with Arabian cash to support AML, but there has never been sufficient cash to engineer the cars properly.

 

[Firefly625]

I remember some years ago I was showing a chap a new Land Rover Defender 110 CSW, I recall he wanted a drive in one to see how bad it was, so I took him for a drive. Making conversation on the drive and being an inquisitive 20yr old I asked him what he did and he said he owned Aston Martin. I remember being quite impressed with that answer. Peter Livanos did buy a Land Rover off me and we sent it over to Overfinch who installed a 6.7 V8 in it and painted it orange and he kept it at his ski chalet, was nice bit of kit at the time..

 

[TheOrs]

I was thinking some of you were perhaps being a little harsh on the AM37 (apart from the ridiculous price of course) until I watched that Riva video.

That is a gorgeous boat. I now see what you mean.

Fantastico!