Aston Martin Seeks to Double Sales in Three Years

British supercar maker Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd. hopes a new CEO and some new models perhaps including a crossover vehicle will boost the company's worldwide sales to 7,000 units by 2016 from half that amount last year, Bloomberg News reports.

An unidentified source tells the news service that the iconic carmaker is about three months from naming a successor to Ulrich Bez, who has headed Aston Martin for 13 years. Bloomberg says Bez is likely to remain chairman of the company.

Last year London-based Investindustrial spent 150 million (€178 million) to acquire a 37.5% stake in the carmaker. The cash infusion kept the company solvent and has helped bankroll a vaguely defined five-year, 500 million (€593 million) product development program.

Aston Martin is the only wholly independent global supercar maker. In July the company arranged to buy high-performance engines from Daimler AG's AMG unit. But an earlier plan for Aston Martin to build ultra-luxurious Maybach sedans for Daimler collapsed when the German carmaker decided to scrap the Maybach brand.

Investindustrial has said it will seek partnerships with other carmakers and suppliers to help reduce the cost of new-product development.