due to the development of the jaguar xj220, ford had not been very keen on development of new aston martin models due to high development costs and the wake of the 1990s economic downturn. aston martin ceo at the time, walter hayes approached walkinshaw as he had seen the potential in walkinshaw's proposition to succeed. development started with a project name of xx. ian callum was again tasked to redesign the car so it would look like an aston martin. due to a limited financial backing at the time, the final product shared many components from other marques owned by ford. the tail lights came from the mazda 323 f, the chrome door handles came from the mazda 323 estate, the turn signals came from the mazda mx-5 and the interior door mirror switches came from the ford scorpio. the only foreign component would be the wing mirrors which were shared with the citroën cx. the whole project cost us$30 million.