The mystery corporation that attempted to buy the intellectual property of the Aston Martin Vanquish, including the tooling and design drawings, has been identified as Detroit Electric.
Auto News reports that the company approached Aston about buying acquiring the intellectual property for the previous-generation Vanquish and, before long, a contract was inked.
However, things soon turned sour. The deal, worth 20 million pounds ($24,304,000) would see Detroit Electric paying 5 million pounds ($6,076,000) in twice-yearly installments but the small electric car manufacturer failed to pay up.
Aston Martin was reluctant to reveal the identity of the buyer and there had been some talk about it possibly being Geely or Morgan. However, during a call with analysts, Aston’s management named Detroit Electric as the company which it had signed the contract with. The British company has been forced to submit a provision for doubtful debt of 19 million pounds ($23 million) acknowledging that they don’t expect to make the money they initially reported as income shortly after signing the deal.
Little has been heard about Detroit Electric in recent years. Back in 2015, it commenced production of its Lotus-based SP:01 electric sports car first presented in early 2013. It remains to be seen how many units have been produced and the car manufacturer appeared to shift its attention away from the SP:01 in the second-half of 2017 with the announcement that it was planning a new crossover, sedan, and sports car to rival Tesla’s family of models. Very little has been heard from the company since then.