Aston Martin in legal dispute over payments for £2.5m Valkyrie ‘hypercar’
Carmaker goes to Swiss courts alleging £10m advanced by customers has been withheld by dealers
Aston Martin is suing two Swiss car dealers whom it claims withheld more than £10m of customers’ money that had been paid towards its £2.5m Valkyrie hypercar.
The luxury carmaker said on Tuesday that it is lodging documents with the Swiss criminal prosecutor asking it to investigate the board members of Nebula Project AG.
Aston will also bring a civil action against Nebula Project, which handled some customer deposits for the hypercar. The carmaker will take a £15m hit to profits this year and book a further undisclosed amount next year, it said in a statement.
The Valkyrie is a flagship product for Aston Martin, with a limited run of 150 models and 30 more for a racetrack version that is designed to spearhead the company’s push into mid-engine models.
“Aston Martin is fully committed to supporting and working with those customers affected to ensure that they will still receive delivery of their Valkyrie programme vehicles as scheduled,” the carmaker added.
At least £10m of the £15m hit is from the missing customer deposits. The remaining £5m is from an accounting provision due to changes in commercial arrangements after the group terminated the Aston Martin dealership run by the same directors in Switzerland. The company has four other dealerships in the country.
The two directors of the business are Andreas Baenziger and Florian Kamelger, according to filings and earlier press releases about the project.
The pair helped Aston finance the Valkyrie in 2016 by offering to underwrite the project and by handling some Swiss customer deposits, which were used to fund development of the car.
In return, Nebula was due to collect commission from sales of the Valkyrie model as well as two subsequent cars based on the same technology, the Valhalla and the Vanquish.
Because it has now cancelled the deal, Aston believes it will avoid having to pay a cut of the sales to Nebula, leaving the carmaker financially better off in the long run despite the hit to finances over the next two years.
“The financial impact of not having received all the deposited funds, is expected to be outweighed by the benefit from the termination of the Nebula agreement and associated potential royalty payments,” Aston said.
The unusual funding model was put in place at a time when Aston was struggling financially and unable to invest in the vehicle, which it claims will be the fastest and most expensive road car ever made.
While deposits paid to Nebula by buyers of the hypercar were passed on to Aston, Nebula directors also collected further payments from some customers, which they did not pass on to the carmaker, it is alleged in the court filings.
A number of Aston customers have joined the legal case, which was first reported by the Financial Times overnight. The carmaker says it will honour the sales agreements. Deliveries of the car are expected to begin in September and run into next year.
The episode is an embarrassment for the business at a time it is seeking to win back investor confidence under the new management of Lawrence Stroll.
The Canadian billionaire led a £540m bailout last year and is now its chair, pushing back its electric cars and focusing on mid-engine supercars based on the Valkyrie to poach customers from Ferrari.
Sales of the Valkyrie had been expected to begin in 2020, but were delayed until late this year after the pandemic affected product testing.
The Valhalla supercar, which is based on the Valkyrie, will also appear in the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die.
The Nebula directors have been contacted for comment.