Luxury sports car maker Aston Martin is to move its assembly plant from Bloxham to Warwickshire.

The company, owned by Ford, is to transfer production of both its £100,000 DB7 model, produced in Bloxham, and its £158,000 Vanquish model, produced in Newport Pagnell, to Gaydon, north of Banbury.

The company says all the workers will be offered jobs at the new plant.

About 25 engineers from Bloxham have already transferred to Aston Martin's Gaydon site, which is also the engineering centre for Land Rover, another company owned by Ford's Premier Automotive Group.

Work has started on an assembly line in Gaydon where Aston Martin will produce a new model code-named AM305 which will sell for £65,000-£75,000.

Spokesman Tim Watson said: "We will not be moving from Bloxham for at least two or three years."

He added: "This is a good news story. There will be no job losses and all workers will be offered their jobs at Gaydon, which is only 20 minutes up the road."

Last year Aston Martin, famous for supplying glamorous supercars for James Bond, produced 1,300 cars at Bloxham and 400 at Newport Pagnell. All were built for buyers on a long waiting list.

In 2000, the latest year for which figures are available, the company made an operating profit of £7.43m on sales of £82.9m.

Aston Martin says the move is part of an expansion programme that will see car production rise to as much as 5,000 a year by about 2005.

Analysts believe the Bloxham assembly plant may become a motorsport centre. They say the car company is in talks with potential sponsorship partners about developing a racing car to compete at Le Mans.