Aston Martin wins NHTSA exemption to new safety rules

Aston Martin has won a federal exemption to tighter safety regulations that recently went into effect.
The company had petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to grant a temporary stay, allowing the current-generation DB9 and Vantage to be sold for several more years without any design modifications.

Bringing the existing models into compliance would have allegedly required an investment of approximately $30 million, equating to approximately $45,000 per vehicle sold in the US market between 2014 and 2017.

Dealers later joined the campaign, arguing that showrooms would have to be shuttered and employment would be threatened if the offending models were no longer legal to sell to US buyers.

“The basis for the grant is that compliance would cause substantial economic hardship to a low volume manufacturer that has tried in good faith to comply with the standard,” the agency wrote in its exemption notice.

Aston Martin now has until 2017 to bring its full lineup into compliance, allowing the next-generation models to arrive with the necessary design considerations to improve crashworthiness.