Содержание выпуска: Issue 27 — Vantage

IT WOULD SEEM mid-engined Aston Martin hypercars are like buses; you wait ages for one to arrive, then two turn up at once. Though all is not quite what it seems in the images you see here (or in the YouTube video), the sight of both Valkyrie and Valhalla together on track for the first time is undeniably rather wonderful. First let’s deal with Valkyrie. This is the long-awaited first running prototype, which was shown at this year’s Geneva motor show and made its dynamic debut by running a few laps ahead of July’s British Grand Prix. No-one at Aston (or indeed Red Bull Advanced Technologies) will pretend it has been anything but a monumental effort to get this far, but now that the development car is running, the programme…

THE CONCEPT OF true luxury continues to evolve, and for car enthusiasts the car world has changed beyond all recognition in the last couple of decades. Classic and performance cars are now desired and valued by collectors as works of automotive art. Recently an Italian court ruled that a Ferrari GTO (36 constructed, last one sold for $48.4 million) is now a protected ‘Work of Art’ alongside masterpieces by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. With so many superb motoring events to choose from today, car enthusiasts are also collecting exciting cars to enjoy driving, showing or racing. But with many collectors living in busy metropolitan areas such as London, finding suitable garaging is becoming more of a problem in terms of available space and cost. The upshot is that many…

What’s in a name? If it happens to be Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake, rather a lot. If there’s a moniker that packs greater class, dynamism, quirkiness and exoticism into six words, I’ve yet to hear it. As you’ll recall, the Shooting Brake was the final instalment of a Vanquish-based Zagato tetralogy that saw a limited run of 99 Vanquish Zagato Coupés joined in turn by 99 Volantes, 28 Speedsters and a further 99 Shooting Brakes. Of the quartet it was the £650,000 (plus options!) Shooting Brake that drew most attention. Largely because it was the least expected and the most outrageous, but also because it tapped into the collective fascination that surrounds the shooting brake as a breed. Sometimes handsome, often ungainly, but always deeply individual and irrationally…

The DB4 GT Zagato is often, quite rightly, described as the ‘royalty’ of Newport Pagnell Astons, so what does that make the car that was owned from new by one of the Zagato brothers? ‘Pre-eminent’ might just about cover it. Whatever we call it, this very special example of the 19 surviving originals is the perfect subject with which to celebrate 100 years of this remarkable carrozzeria, and almost 60 years since the first collaboration with our favourite British car maker. Though never the largest nor the most prolific of Italy’s celebrated design houses, Zagato is nonetheless every bit as highly regarded as Touring, Pininfarina, Ghia, Bertone (the latter the only rival that predates it) or any of the others. When the automobile is consigned to history, it will be…

As you may recall, it was record-breakingly hot in Britain in late July. In Germany it was even hotter. I ponder on the ability of long-chain synthetic rubber molecules to hold together in this heat, plus the extra temperature added by constant flexing and friction generation, as I hurtle along an autobahn in a fast, heavy car, air heated to 40degC rent apart by the big, bluff nose. In March 1971, Motor tested the V8-engined version of the handsomely modern DBS. The mostly enthusiastic test – ‘dragster performance’ and ‘immensely fast by any standards’ were two observations – rued the fitment of a particular type of Pirelli tyre, able to cope with a top speed of over 160mph at the expense of wet grip. Motor preferred the ‘superb’ Avons of…

The long-outdated ‘grim up north’ stereotype may no longer be a true reflection of this proud region’s post-industrial identity. But there’s an undeniable grit to both mindset and landscape, seemingly far removed from the more idealised vision of Englishness that many might associate with Aston Martin. Yet, thanks to Sheffield-born chief creative officer Marek Reichman, the influence of the urban and natural scenery of the north is present in everything from Vantage to Valkyrie. Hence the inspiration for a bit of a road trip in one of his cars, tracing a chronological and geographical path through his upbringing to better understand how these surroundings inform the spirit of the Vantage we’ll be driving. From Marek’s hometown of Sheffield we’ll follow his journey across the Pennines and North York Moors to…

WHILE ALL EYES have been understandably turned towards Aston Martin Works’ meticulous continuation build of the DB4 GT Zagato (see page 11), it has been easy to overlook the second and arguably more intriguing half of the £6m (plus taxes) DBZ Centenary Collection – the DBS GT Zagato. After the early concept sketches, we’ve now been treated to a set of detailed renderings and even a scale model of the car, which show the latest collaboration between Aston Martin and Zagato in what is described as the ‘final production intent exterior’. As you can see, there’s certainly plenty to take in. Given that its basis is the DBS Superleggera, you’d expect a certain degree of visual similarity, but whichever angle you view it from, the DBS GT Zagato is very…

AS THE 2019 SEASON draws towards a close, it’s time to reflect on another summer of superb events. As I write, the distinctive engine notes of so many Astons, together with the chat and laughter of members enjoying the chance to socialise with like-minded folk, are still hanging in the air. As ever, the Aston Martin Owners Club is as much about the people as it is the cars. One of the undoubted highlights of the summer was the London to Edinburgh Centenary Tour, marking exactly 100 years since the very first road-registered Aston Martin, ‘Coal Scuttle’, completed its first competitive event, the 1919 London to Edinburgh Trial. As you can read elsewhere in this issue, dozens of Astons of all ages took part, giving members the opportunity to soak…

Muncher memories The last issue of Vantage, with its Le Mans theme, brought back a multitude of memories, starting with Stephen Archer’s track test of DBR1/4. He mentions that ‘in 1973 the factory ran it in a Historic Le Mans race’. What he doesn’t mention was the fact that the factory entered the car for an entire season in the Historic Racing Car Championship. The driver was my good friend, Brian Joscelyne, and together they won the championship that year. Sadly Le Mans was the one race that Brian did not finish, having suffered the dreaded gearchange problem, ending up in the barriers, at Arnage I think it was. He may have ruefully reflected that I’d invited him to be best man at my wedding – but he couldn’t accept…

It has always amused and confused me that, despite our patchy weather, we Brits have a world-class love of convertibles. Then again, perhaps because we never take the old currant bun for granted, we regard a convertible car as a means to rejoice in each sunny day, much as we would at a chance meeting with a long-lost friend. Life is certainly sweet when you find yourself behind the wheel of the new DBS Volante Superleggera. Immaculately styled, indulgently appointed and indecently quick, it embodies the timeless qualities for which open-topped Astons have always been so easy to adore. Yet it also brims with a new-age energy, ability and confidence. This is Aston as world player, its desirability literally sky high. Nevertheless Aston Martin is taking no chances with the…

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Mike Loasby first arrived at Newport Pagnell in 1967 from Coventry Climax and worked as a development engineer under Tadek Marek, the expat Pole who had designed Aston’s straight-six and V8 engines. ‘I had a little office next to Tadek’s,’ he recalls. ‘Tadek did his design work and his stamping up and down next door, smoking his Gauloises. Lovely man. We got on terribly well – I think we thought the same way. ‘When I joined, the V8 was in the Lola [the ill-fated Le Mans racer] and also in the DB4 and DB5 experimental cars, 4 YMC and NPP 7D. Startling performance, as you can imagine. ‘It was an immensely exciting time and I was doing about 90 per cent of the test driving. We used to bomb down…

IT WASN’T ACTUALLY RAINING when we drove the 1935 Aston Martin Ulster. It had been, and it was soon after, though. In fact rain hardly describes it; sousing out of the sky, turning Silverstone’s Stowe circuit into a shimmering mirror, it was the kind of rain you note down in your diary. Yet Ten Tenths, the historic preparation specialists owned by Nick Mason, Pink Floyd’s head of syncopation, has a track record of grim determination in these circumstances. The other day I was leafing through a mid-80s Willie Green track test of Ten Tenths’ Bugatti Type 35 where Green thanks them for risking such a valuable car in such soaking conditions… Actually, Chloe Mason’s car (for it is hers rather than her father’s) has disgraced itself on starting, fracturing an…

IT WAS A RACE that promised so much yet turned out to be a weekend to forget. For Aston Martin Racing the unique opportunity to return to Le Mans for the second time in the same season with the still relatively new turbocharged Vantage GTE was a shot at redemption. Due to the vagaries of the World Endurance Championship’s new ‘Super Season’ format, in which a year’s worth of endurance racing straddles two calendar years, the 2018/19 season saw two visits to La Sarthe, the 2018 race serving as the season opener and this year’s race being the season finale. In fact 2018 was the acid-green Aston’s debut in the legendary French endurance race and it was something of a debacle, thanks largely to an imbalance in the Balance of…

‘WE’VE TAKEN 105 YEARS to get to an IPO,’ noted Andy Palmer after Aston Martin floated on the London Stock Exchange last October. ‘We’re not going to worry too much about what the initial shares are doing… Our plan is very much a long-term growth plan.’ Aston optimists have clung onto those words in recent weeks as the share price (469p at the time of writing) has tumbled, hitting a low of 371p, or 20 per cent of the IPO price, following a profit warning and a revised sales forecast. Having previously expected to sell as many as 7300 cars this year, Aston now anticipates that it will move between 6300 and 6500, blaming ‘deteriorating macro-economic factors’. The company is hardly the only carmaker batting on a sticky wicket at…

The histories of Aston Martin and Goodwood have long been intertwined, so it was wonderfully appropriate to see Aston as the featured marque at this year’s Festival of Speed. In fact, the special connection dates right back to the very dawn of motorsport at Goodwood itself. It’s a remarkable 70 years since the first Aston raced at the famous circuit just down the road from the House, and what an occasion that was. When the Bank Holiday Monday fixture was held in perfect weather on April 18, 1949, an estimated 40,000 fans crowded to see the second ever race held there. Such was the clamour to watch the action, some spectators scaled buildings for a better view, others had to be encouraged back from the edge of the track at…

Half a century is a very long time. When Richard Stewart Williams was founding his eponymous business, Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, The Monkees were climbing the charts with Daydream Believer, Dustin Hoffman was being seduced by Anne Bancroft in The Graduate and Aston Martin was preparing to launch the DBS V8. Meanwhile, underneath the railway arches in Brixton in south London, an ambitious young man was setting up a small workshop to repair and service Astons… RS Williams has come an awfully long way since then. The company has long been one of the best-known names in the Aston world, today employs 32 staff and occupies rather larger premises at Cobham in Surrey. Earlier this year a gathering was held to celebrate the firm’s 50 years (actually 51 now,…

Claims to fame are not unusual, but HWM has some of true note. It is the oldest Aston Martin business in the world. It has sold around 2500 Astons in seven decades. Its 60th anniversary as an Aston dealer was in 2011 and its 80th anniversary as a car dealer was celebrated in 2018. Remarkably it has had only three managing directors and five sales managers since 1950. When you consider that less than 5 per cent of all businesses have survived 80 years, that makes HWM a rare survivor with admirable staying power. It is with good reasons that this Aston Martin oasis in Walton-on-Thames has been so enduring. There may even be an interesting business case study here, but in the absence of a dissertation it can be…