Aston Martin factory to close for two more weeks

Luxury car company Aston Martin is to extend its planned Christmas shutdown for another two weeks, it was announced today.

Production staff at the company's plant at Gaydon, Warwickshire, were due to return to work on 5 January after the festive closure.

But production at Gaydon, where the DBS, DB9 and V8 Vantage models are made, will now not start again until 19 January.

Asked if there were likely to be any job losses in the future, an Aston Martin spokesman said today: "We are keeping the economic situation under constant review."

The company is the latest car manufacturer to announce cuts in production at a time when new car sales are falling fast.

Honda, Jaguar Land Rover and Mini are among the firms which are scaling back on manufacturing to cope with the big dip in demand.