Sommaire pour Issue 26 de Vantage

LET’S BE HONEST, there’s a little part of all of us that would love to be Sean Connery in a certain Silver Birch DB5. A very select few with extremely deep pockets may even be anticipating the chance to live out that fantasy at the wheel of their own Bond DB5, thanks to Aston Martin’s decision to build a run of 25 Goldfinger DB5 continuation cars, complete with working replicas of the famous gadgets. And now Aston has revealed what some of those gadgets might be – with accompanying pictures of them being tested in prototype form. Technicians at Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell have been working with Chris Corbould, the Oscar-winning special effects supervisor on the James Bond films, to produce the prototype gadgets as part of the…

WITH THE 2018/19 WORLD Endurance Championship Super Season entering its final phase, we are in the unique position of not only having two editions of the Le Mans 24 Hours in one season, but also having the world’s greatest endurance race as the grand finale. For Aston Martin Racing, the timing appears to be perfect, thanks to a run of impressive performances in the second half of the season. This was topped-off most recently with a GTE Pro class win at Spa-Francorchamps for the #97 V8 Vantage of Maxime Martin and Alex Lynn, who battled extraordinary weather conditions that saw the race run in a blizzard and eventually red-flagged. Spa was also a strong weekend for the TF Sport squad in GTE Am, the British independent team’s first-generation V8 Vantage…

AS I WRITE, preparations are in full swing for one of the biggest events of the AMOC year, the spectacular Concours D’Etat and Bonhams Aston Martin Sale, which this year is being held in the superb setting of the Wormsley Estate in Buckinghamshire. By the time you read these words, the trophies will have been handed out and the marquees packed away, hopefully all in glorious sunshine! But there’s so much more to look forward to in what has turned out to be a year of anniversaries and celebrations. Uppermost in many minds, of course, is the 60th anniversary of the 1-2 finish at Le Mans in 1959, and plenty of club members will be heading to the famous circuit for a long weekend of race-watching and Aston-themed celebrations. The…

DBR1 sculpture by Antoine Dufi lho £POA. art-avantage.com The only Aston to claim overall victory at Le Mans is remembered as fondly across the Channel as it is on these shores, and French artist Antoine Dufilho was inspired to interpret its fabulous lines in resin and aluminium. 24 Hours of Le Mans bag £199. boutique.lemans.org Plenty big enough for a weekend by the track and, crucially, squashy enough that you’ll find space for it in your Aston even if your travelling companion insists on packing the kitchen sink. DB4 GT Continuation‚ A History in the Making £40. porterpress.co.uk You might well ask what more there could possibly be to say about the DB4 GT Continuation. Plenty, it turns out. This book by James Page explores in detail the technical and…

This is it then, the last Rapide, the last of the ‘VH’ family of Aston Martins and the last series-production Aston to be powered by a naturally aspirated engine. We shouldn’t mourn its imminent passing though, rather its very existence should be celebrated, its legacy secured and every cubic centimetre of its 5.9-litre V12 enjoyed for one final time. Which is exactly what Aston Martin intends, with this end-of-days, limited-run Rapide AMR. AMR’s deft touch has been applied here with the same precision as it was to the DB11 AMR, with detailed enhancements across the board rather than any radical wholesale changes. A similar approach has been taken with the forthcoming AMR Vantage, too. So Marek Reichman’s four-door design (the lime green stripes are optional, many of you will be…

‘The engine test-beds were in a building known as The Morgue. Working there was not without risks…’ BOYISH ENTHUSIASM is the lifeblood that sustains our Aston Martin passion. When the ‘boy’ in question is a chuckling octogenarian and one of the diminishing alumni of Aston’s David Brown heyday, you’re very grateful to have the chance to spend time in his company. Roy Jones’s youthful outlook is doubtless boosted by his weekly swimming sessions, frequent drives to visit his daughter in France, and a regular turn singing in a local choir. The last of these is possibly a legacy of his Welsh family background, as is the nickname he was given as a young man. To differentiate him from any of the other Joneses at Aston Martin, he might well have…

There’s an awful lot to love about the big old twin-supercharged Vantages. For many, they represent the last ‘true’ Aston Martins, their steel platform chassis, aluminium bodies, V8 engines and sumptuous interiors all laboriously and lovingly crafted by hand in Newport Pagnell’s by-then somewhat Dickensian facilities. It all seems a very long time ago now, but I’m old enough to remember these cars when they were new. Indeed, I drove a number of them for magazine features, enjoying the ritual of arriving at Newport Pagnell and being ushered to the Board Room across the road at Sunnyside, where I’d wait to be handed the keys while HRH The Prince of Wales peered down at me from a portrait on the wall. I have extremely fond memories of those times and…

If there’s a model that sums up Aston Martin’s 21st century story, it is the Vanquish. The DB7 might have been the first modern-era Aston, and unquestionably saved the company, but its Jaguar roots and outsourced manufacturing at the inherited TWR JaguarSport Wykham Mill facility near Bloxham distanced it literally and genetically from the handcrafted cars built at the marque’s historic Newport Pagnell home. In the Vanquish, Aston Martin found the perfect way to re-boot the brand, propelling the flagship product from the charming but painfully outmoded Virage-based supercharged Vantage to an authentic yet technology-rich pathfinder into a brave new world. That almost two decades later Aston has bestowed the Vanquish name upon its latest Vision Concept – which at this year’s Geneva show previewed the company’s first series-production mid-engined…

WE’RE ALL WELL-VERSED in what the Aston Martin Valkyrie promises, but how do you take these remarkable claims with anything more than a pinch of salt when you know for a fact that until very recently a fully functioning car didn’t actually exist? Simulation, that’s how. It’s appropriate that all the development work done thus far on this heavily F1-influenced hypercar has been conducted exclusively in the virtual realm, for that is exactly how F1 cars are designed these days. The work of refining this digital development prototype has fallen to Chris Goodwin, Aston’s high performance test driver, who has ‘driven’ the Valkyrie more than 8500 virtual kilometres. Now, with the simulated car at a stage where it can offer novice hands a representative taste of what the Valkyrie is…

LOPPING THE ROOF OFF perhaps the most handsome new car money can buy could end in all kinds of wrong, but by the looks of these images the new DBS Superleggera Volante is very, very right. Employing the same 715bhp, 664lb ft 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 and eight-speed ZF automatic transmission as the coupé, the DBS Volante is the fastest convertible car in Aston Martin’s history. Top speed is identical to the coupé’s at 211mph, while the 0-60mph time is fractionally slower at 3.6sec thanks to an increase in weight from added bracing to maintain structural rigidity. Aston is yet to release the actual figure, but comparing weights of the DB11 coupé and Volante, we’d estimate an increase of around 100kg. With the folding eight-layer fabric hood raised, the Volante’s lines…

IN ADDITION TO ITS international factory-run GTE, GT3 and GT4 racing activities through Aston Martin Racing (AMR), for the first time in its history the Aston Martin marque is being represented in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) Championship. Typically the home of domestic marques such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Aston’s involvement has come as the result of a joint venture between Swissbased AF Racing AG (a strategic partner of AML’s Valkyrie hypercar programme and an affiliate company of Switzerland’s only exclusive AML dealership, Aston Martin St Gallen) and HWA – a German motor racing team with strong connections to Daimler-owned AMG. The DTM programme is run by R-Motorsport (motorsport division of Aston Martin St Gallen – stay with me here) and sees four Aston Martin Vantages take to the…

BY THE TIME this issue of Vantage reaches you, Bonhams’ annual Aston Martin sale will have been and gone, but the wait for another Aston-only auction will be a short one: RM Sotheby’s has announced that it will host an ‘Evening of Aston Martin’ on August 15 as part of its Monterey extravaganza. Just one consignment, a 1964 DB5 estimated at $700,000-900,000, has been revealed so far. RM promises, though, that the Monterey Conference Center will be filled with ‘more than 30 of the world’s most sought-after road-going and track-ready Aston Martins’. Hardly ‘managing our expectations’, but on the evidence of its Villa Erba catalogue, the house is unlikely to disappoint. Still a couple of weeks away at the time of writing, the Villa Erba sale features an astonishing assortment…

email us eds@vantagemag.co.uk write to us Vantage Magazine Editorial, Dennis Publishing, 31-32 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP Road trip to remember In issue 24 of Vantage, a reader described a drive to the south of France he had done with his teenaged son in a Vanquish S. Since our children grow up so quickly, his story had a particular resonance with me. Such bonding moments are special and fleeting, and made all the more memorable when they occur behind the wheel of an Aston. The day after my daughter Sara’s high school graduation, she and I embarked on a similar adventure: what would become a 3400-mile road trip in my 1976 AM V8, on a quest to find the best carrot cake! Our drive through south-western Canada and the north-western…

It seems hard to believe, but there was a time when the V12 Vantage was a pipe dream. One that a small team of Aston Martin engineers believed to be possible, but one that was by no means certain to make production. In attempting to fit its most compact sports coupé with its largest engine, Aston fired all our imaginations. But it wasn’t until we clapped eyes on the one-off Vantage RS Concept that the dream seemed real. No vacuous show pony, this fully functioning proof-of-concept engineering exercise established that the ultimate ship-in-a-bottle engine installation was not only possible but a living, breathing reality. The first official glimpse of the RS Concept was in December 2007, at the grand opening of Aston Martin’s brand new Design Studio. This was peak…

However long you’ve followed Aston Martin, there are always new facts and new stories to amaze and amuse. It just seems to be that sort of company. So here’s another to add to the memory bank. When the ‘Q by Aston Martin’ team were deciding how to trim and equip the rather fabulous new DBS 59 special edition, they spent a day with one of the DBR1s that the new model would be built to honour – in fact chassis number 4, the very car featured on the cover of this issue. While they were poring over it, their eyes were inevitably drawn to the highly distinctive woven seat material… Simon Lane, now director of Q but also the guy who commissioned the project in his former role as dealer…

On the face of it, the bald facts are nothing to write home about. This car appeared only once at Le Mans in the form you see here, and expired after less than three hours. As far as its front-line racing career was concerned, that was pretty much it. And yet, just as it captured the imagination then, so too today. It’s not hard to work out why. First there was the back story – plucky Brit car dealer takes on the giants of motorsport in the world’s greatest endurance race. Then there was the way it looked – identifiably a V8 Aston Martin but all pumped-up and brutally purposeful with its flared wheelarches, power bulges, spoilers and scoops. And then there was the nickname: The Muncher, bestowed by a…

TRY YOUR FIRST ISSUE FOR JUST £3 Did you know you could save money and get every issue delivered to your door for free? Better yet, if you continue your subscription after your trial issue you can get the whole year (4 issues) for just £22, which is an additional 8% saving on the shop price! For our digital editions visit zinio.com and search ‘Vantage’ ORDER ONLINE AT dennismags.co.uk/vantage OR CALL 0330 333 9491 AND QUOTE OFFER CODE: D1906 Calls to 03 numbers will be charged at your standard local rate. Live outside the UK? For our best overseas subscription offers visit dennismags.co.uk/vantage or call +44 (0)330 333 9491 for our Rest of World subscriptions. For USA call 1-800-428-3003 or visit www.imsnews.com/vantage…

UNDERLINING ITS position as the hardcore drivers’ car of the Aston Martin range, the new Vantage AMR comes equipped with a manual transmission, the ‘dog-leg’ seven-speed gearbox first seen in the previous-generation V12 Vantage S making an appearance in the new twin-turbo V8 Vantage for the first time. Power and torque remain unchanged at 503bhp and 505lb ft, but removing the auto gearbox and fitting carbon brakes as standard means the AMR is 95kg lighter. It is also equipped with AMSHIFT; a system that mimics the throttle-blipping of heel-and-toe downshifts and also allows for full-throttle upshifts. Limited to 200 units worldwide, the Vantage AMR is available in five designer specifications: 141 cars will be in a choice of Sabiro Blue, Onyx Black, China Grey or White Stone, with the remaining…

THE GOODWOOD Members’ Meeting is firmly established as one of the must-attend events: great, diverse racing and with a relaxed atmosphere. And even better if the sun shines. After last year’s snow-affected meet, the date was moved back into April this year, and the weather was rather kinder as a result. The John Duff vintage race saw exciting racing throughout the field and there was a great performance from William Wood in his 1930 International, showing how effective these early Astons are, even with modest horsepower. The Peter Collins Trophy race for 1950s sports-racing cars appropriately had two DB3Ss taking part: Simon Hadfield was an impressive 5th in his production car but most notable was the first appearance on a race track since 1985 for DB3S/6, the car in which…

DBR9 - The Definitive History €195 | tag-motorbooks.com Aston Martin Racing stalwart Darren Turner has never been in any doubt as to the DBR9’s greatness. ‘To be part of back-to-back GT1 class wins at Le Mans in 2007 and 2008 was something truly extraordinary,’ he told us when we interviewed him about the DBR9’s race career back in 2014. ‘Every driver loves a winning car, but there was something really special about the DBR9. They were properly exciting things to race and you really had to hustle to get the best from it. ‘The motor had real grunt and I can still hear that noise now. There’s nothing quite like the sound or the delivery of a racing V12, and that Aston motor was very special. It’s one of the…

You drive. We care STATE OF THE ART security and a fantastically convenient location have contributed greatly to the instant success of Boxd Ldn, but what has really got owners buzzing is the quality and expertise and professionalism of the complete concierge service … and the company’s empathy towards what owners want. This new storage company has put an enormous amount of thought into providing complete reassurance and a total maintenance service for customers, 60 of whom have flocked to it in its first six months. After all, probably the number one factor for anyone putting a cherished car into short- or long-term storage is peace of mind, whether in regard to security, accessibility, confidence in the service provider, or that their car will be on-the-button when they want to…

Spoiler alert: this is the greatest Aston Martin ever. So there you have it. Savour the pictures and enjoy the rest of your day. Not so fast, Archer, I hear you say, that’s quite a claim. But greatness, I would contend, is not an entirely subjective thing. Rather like art, it can be measured by the achievement in light of the intent. And in this regard the DBR1 gets off to a very good start indeed. David Brown wanted to win Le Mans from the moment he bought Aston Martin in 1947. After 12 years of trying, coming very close on a few occasions and achieving many class successes along the way, he and Aston Martin finally took the Le Mans winner’s flag 60 years ago. Two generations on, and…

The relationship between Lola Engineering and Aston Martin is one of the marque’s less-known stories. It started as far back as 1967, when John Surtees fitted a prototype of Aston’s then-new V8 engine to his Lola T70 Le Mans car. All went well at first – indeed Surtees was a startling third-fastest in testing – but in the race the engine soon failed, leading, at least in part, to its complete redesign before it finally found its way into the DBS V8 in 1969. The relationship was rekindled in the early 1980s, when Lola founder Eric Broadley designed the Nimrod, a Group C Le Mans car. If not an Aston factory car, it was certainly factory-supported and, while never able to compete with the all-conquering Porsche 956s, did commendably well…

The blue (slightly metallic) Aston Martin you see here has drum brakes. You would expect nothing else from a car of this era, discs being a few years from automotive adoption. Many people assume drum brakes to be rubbish, but they need not be so. Properly configured, properly adjusted and with shoes lined with suitable material, they can work very well. This car’s brakes, though, have just caused me to overshoot a layby from which I was planning to pick up our photographer, a few action shots having been completed. All my frantically increasing pedal pressure has achieved is a sense of something giving way beneath my right foot – a vital seal, perhaps – while forward motion suffers minimal attenuation. These linings surely consist mostly of PTFE, usefully heat-resistant…

Almost everywhere you look in this issue there are anniversaries of one kind or another, so why not here. After all, not many specialists have been on the same site for half a century and still with the same man at the helm. ‘I’m pretty sure only RS Williams has been around as long as us,’ says founder and managing director Gordon Wyles as he welcomes us to the Chiltern Aston Centre. There’s been a name change along the way – the business used to trade as Car Care Works – but they’ve always been an Aston specialist and always on this site, just outside Hemel Hempstead in leafy Hertfordshire. It’s the Tuesday after the Easter bank holiday weekend and the whole place is fairly buzzing with activity. There’s nothing…