Sommaire pour Issue 18 de Vantage

IF PROOF WERE NEEDED as to the fickle form of race teams and drivers, reflect on the current reversal of fortune for Aston Martin Racing and its reigning World Endurance Championship-winning Danes Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen. Bathed in glory at the end of last season after winning the final round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and with it the GTE PRO crown, the Danish duo and AMR were riding high coming into the 2017 season. Now, two races in and the situation couldn’t be more different, with the Ferrari 488s, Ford GTs and, to a lesser extent, Porsche 911s all demonstrating a pace advantage over the V8 Vantage GTE. As ever with the mechanics of modern GT racing, the reasons for AMR’s disappointing start in WEC are numerous…

‘WOULD YOU LIKE to be a guest judge for one of the classes at the Spring Concours?’ asked AMOC’s Nikki Wright. But of course, I replied, thinking to myself: how onerous could it be? Glance over a few pretty Astons, stick a rosette on the shiniest one, then a complimentary glass of fizz before a very nice AMOC lunch. It doesn’t turn out quite like that… What I very quickly realise is that the entrants – even for the relatively relaxed Pride of Ownership class, which is the one I’m helping judge – take it all very seriously. But not half as seriously as the judges. How it works is, each car starts with a nominal hundred marks, then a mark is deducted for anything that offends the judges’ eyes.…

email us eds@vantagemag.co.uk write to us Vantage Magazine, Dennis Publishing, Bedford Technology Park, Thurleigh, Bedford, MK44 2YA Bluebird memories I very much enjoyed discovering Vantage and reading the article about the ex-Donald Campbell DB2/4 (issue 17) to which I was able to add my own recollections – as part of the design team on both the K7 hydroplane and the CN7 land speed record car, I knew Campbell a little and, as the article mentioned, once drove that very Aston. What I should have mentioned was that the transmission boxes for CN7 were made by David Brown Ltd. I have a vague recollection of the name of Jim Iredale as my contact there, and I include a photograph of one of the boxes being installed. Hugh Standing, who designed them,…

BACK IN 1954, when David Brown famously landed his helicopter in the small Buckinghamshire town of Newport Pagnell and signed the papers to turn the old Tickford coachworks into a new Aston Martin factory, town and carmaker became inextricably linked and have remained so for more than 60 years. If all goes to plan, the phenomenon is about to be repeated, only this time at a village in south Wales. Until a year or so ago, most of us hadn’t even heard of St Athan (population 4495), though some might have been aware of the nearby Ministry of Defence site to which it gave its name, and whose three ‘super hangars’ are now being transformed into a state-of-the-art carmaking facility. When Aston Martin Lagonda chose this location ahead of 20…

Ah, the Virages... The part-forgotten, often-unlovedAston Martins, bulky ‘bitsas’ trying to tread the line between handbuilt luxury and cost-cutting execution – and largely failing. A Virage Volante I drove in the early 1990s was the worst Aston Martin I have ever driven. It was at a motor industry press test day at the Millbrook test track, and Aston Martin’s then press supremo, Harry Calton, could see by my expression that I thought the sluggish, lardy, wobbly Volante a deep disappointment. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said, anticipating my feedback. But Harry knew that change was afoot, in the shape of the DB7, and we know the rest. All that said, the Virage had good ingredients and the mad, muscled-up Vantage V550/V600 version with its two Eaton superchargers did have a ballistic…

‘Could this car combine the savage performance of a GT12 with the balance and agility of a GT8?’ How’s this for irony? When we tested the spectacular Vantage GT12 (issue 11) the only criticism we could make was that its magnificently potent V12 engine gave it a nose-heavy balance and compromised its traction and stability when driven on track. Then, when we tested its baby brother, the V8- engined Vantage GT8 (issue 15), we rejoiced in its supreme poise and handling, but bemoaned its lack of power and torque. Not only does this apparent paradox highlight how thankless being an automotive engineer must be at times, it demonstrates how even very special and highly focused cars such as the GT8 and GT12 are almost inevitably compromised in some way. Nevertheless,…

News, analysis and events JUST DAYS AFTER we closed our previous issue for press, Aston Martin revealed it was about to launch a new performance sub-brand called AMR. Anyone familiar with the marque’s modern racing activities will already be acquainted with those initials, but although the most extreme AMR road cars will be heavily influenced by Aston Martin Racing, the AMR brand will be about more than ultra-low-volume road-racers. Startling proof of this came in the unlikely but really rather wonderful form of the Rapide AMR. Aston’s famous four-door might not be the obvious recipient of such racy treatment, but it carries it off very well indeed. The Rapide concept has a suite of power, chassis and styling upgrades, indicative of AMR’s first tier. It features a GT12-specification V12 (good…

LORD MARCH STARTED the season in earnest with the 75th Members’ Meeting at Goodwood in March. This is quite unlike the Revival in scale and style but is still hugely entertaining. The Graham Hill Trophy race for ’60s GT cars had two Astons on the grid. Wolfgang Friedrichs’ DP214 replica, in the hands of Joaquin Folch and Simon Hadfield, retired after 12 laps, but the ex-Sebring DB4 GT of Tom Alexander and Adrian Wilmott finished a respectable 18th in a strong field. The magnificent Tour Auto made its traditional April appearance, with plenty of fine weather in France to help the cars around the many road stages and circuits on this superb event. While GT40s and Ferraris battled it out at the top of the order, two venerable Aston Martins…

AS AMERICA’S Twitter-Troll-in-Chief reminded us when he collected the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on 20 January, a heck of a lot can change in a year… For an extended period beginning back in 2013, bidders at major car auctions were falling over themselves to spend money. Prices rose precipitously and consistently enough that many people felt it was almost impossible to overpay for a good car. At Bonhams’ 18th annual Aston Martin extravaganza on May 13, that sentiment was entirely absent. As usual, the Works Sale featured an array of desirable Astons; every year it deservedly attracts a ‘car show’ crowd as well as potential buyers. But, for all the nice stuff in the catalogue, among those with paddles to wave there was none of the giddy excitement to…

In the world of modern racing Astons, the V8 Vantage GTE is the ultimate. And when it comes to V8 Vantage GTEs, this particular car – chassis #004, or the ‘Dane Train’ as it’s known to the Aston Martin Racing team and its army of loyal fans – is the greatest of them all. With nine World Endurance Championship (WEC) GTE class wins, a Le Mans class win in 2014 and two GTE drivers’ world titles – the first as a GTE Am car in 2014, the second just last year after being uprated to 2016 GTE Pro spec – it can lay claim to being the most successful Aston racing car of all time. Though you’d never tell from its immaculate condition and fastidious preparation, the Dane Train is…

AS WITH GAYDON, the 1000-acre airfield at St Athan is a former Royal Air Force facility. In St Athan’s case, the RAF presence dates back to 1938, when a technical training centre was established, though its activities were expanded the following year with the arrival of a fighter group pool. During the Second World War over 14,000 personnel were stationed here and it was used for training both ground and air crew. After the war, St Athan also became an RAF driver training school where recruits who needed to drive (RAF police, etc) learned in a fleet of Morris Minors! St Athan’s main role in recent decades has been as a maintenance base for fighters and bombers… Vulcan, Victor, Buccaneer, Phantom, Harrier, Tornado and others were all serviced here, as…

A STUNNING ARRAY OF ASTONS of all ages gathered for the AMOC Spring Concours at the site of what will be Aston Martin’s new St Athan manufacturing facility in south Wales. It was a fantastic turnout, coming just days after the official handover of the ex-RAF site from the Ministry of Defence to Aston Martin. The event also featured a worldexclusive reveal of the brand new, limited-edition Vanquish S Red Arrows model. Aston Martin Cambridge commissioned the special edition – just ten of which will be built – and has donated one of the cars, ‘Red 10’, to the RAF Benevolent Fund. The charity will raffle ‘Red 10’ to raise funds, and details on how to purchase the £20 raffle tickets can be found at www.rafbf.org/red10 The Concours cars, all…

Chess Set II by The Drivers Society $1250 thedriverssociety.com We’ve never quite had the patience (or the brains) for chess, but we’d gladly install this set in the living room. Each piece is made from Aston, Lotus and Range Rover components, with the King and Queen formed using Aston valves, springs and guides, and the bishops put together from Aston brake pistons and reaction balls. Hamilton Intra-Matic 68 chronograph £1930 hamiltonwatch.com Following hot on the heels of the continuation DB4 GT comes this – further evidence that the old ones are the best. The Intra-Matic ‘68’ is based on a wonderful piece from that year, subtly updated with a larger (42mm) case and a power reserve of 60 hours. Desirables is compiled by Chris Bietzk. If you’d like to have…

The Mille Miglia, 1952: 1000 miles of rain, sun and dust on rough Italian roads in this car? Seriously, how did they do it? Am I getting soft or is this really how they were? ‘They’ being the cars, but the question applies just as well to the men who raced these machines. Today’s racing drivers may have tree trunks for necks to cope with the g-forces, but look at photographs of the drivers of the 1950s and you see bodybuilders’ biceps and substantial upperbody strength. Drivers of that period had to cope with heavy steering, heavy brakes, minimal driver comfort and often intense heat. It was a real endurance test, with long distances and long driver stints. By contrast, today’s Le Mans cars have power steering and airconditioning; the…

SYNERGY, A MUCH OVERUSED, almost clichéd idiom, would not have been in Sir David Brown’s vocabulary during his time at the helm of Aston Martin. In his bluff Yorkshire manner, he eschewed corporate jargon. But the word probably describes his vision for the DB organisation more aptly than any other. The firms that made up the David Brown Corporation were diverse and, sometimes, seemingly unconnected: the worldwide parent gear business with its headquarters in Huddersfield, a foundry in Penistone, the tractor division at Meltham, and Aston Martin and Lagonda – separate entities until 1960. Later additions included shipbuilding businesses, a manufacturing venture for microwave ovens and even a modelling agency, which provided the scantily clad ladies that adorned the bonnets of Astons at the various motor shows around the world.…

According to the Aston Martin Owners Club’s records, Michael Pye tells me, only three DB6s are still in the hands of their original owners. ‘There’s one bloke in Japan who’s got four or five Astons; there’s Prince Charles, God bless him – the famous Mk2 Volante – and there’s me…’ Michael bought the car you see here in November 1966, and the story of how he came to buy it is well worth telling. At the time he’d been invalided out of the Navy and was working for the family road transport business. The Pye group was a major player – at its peak it had 657 vehicles and 308 trailers and depots all over the UK – and Michael, having trained as an engineer, was given the job of…

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