Table of contents for Issue 25 in Vantage

WITH THE WORLD ENDURANCE Championship (WEC) 2018/19 Super Season taking a breather until the 1000 Miles of Sebring in mid-March, many of the world’s best endurance racers spent their winter travelling to warmer climes. Naturally, Aston Martin Racing customer teams have been in the thick of the action. Rounding out the 2018 season was the Gulf 12 Hours, held at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi in December. The event saw three all-new Vantage GT3s entered by three of Aston Martin Racing’s most valued partner teams: Oman Racing by TF Sport and R-Motorsport in the GT3 Pro category, plus Andrew Howard’s Beechdean Motorsport in GT3 Pro-Am, along with a solitary all-new Vantage GT4 entered by the factory AMR team in the GT4 class. Issues at the first pit stop…

Dassi Interceptor From £5995 dassi.com Surely the perfect companion to your Aston Martin Valkyrie, this bicycle presents a challenge to our limited vocabulary. To describe it as merely ‘high-tech’ or ‘innovative’ would be an insult, made as it is with a material only isolated in 2004, and which won its discoverers the Nobel Prize in Physics. That wonder-stuff is graphene, a carbon allotrope 200 times stronger than steel yet lighter than paper, and it has allowed British manufacturer Dassi to build a super-tough frame that weighs just 750g. Insert your own expletive here. Production History poster by Hive Posters From $22.50 hiveposters.storenvy.com A neat summation of the many marvellous machines that Aston has built since 1950, beginning with the DB2 and ending with the DBS Superleggera. It works as a…

Hard to keep up, isn’t it? With Aston Martin’s ambition, that is. It was always part of the fabled Second Century Plan for Aston to become a true Ferrari rival with a mid-engined product portfolio to match, but the 2019 Geneva show was the first time we’ve actually been able to see quite what that Second Century vision looks like. As we know, the patriarch of Aston’s mid-engined family is the jaw-dropping Valkyrie, the first running prototype of which was also proudly on display in Geneva. Unsurprisingly, its influence could clearly be seen in seen in Project 003 and the Vanquish Vision Concept. Project 003, or ‘Son of Valkyrie’ as many have nicknamed it, is another limited-run all-carbon hypercar – 500 will be built – but it is being sold…

It’s over a quarter of a century since the idea of a V12 in a modern product of Aston Martin Lagonda was mooted, and 23 years since the first modern V12 was actually built. Yet that engine’s architecture has stayed recognisable right up to the present day, although currently it powers only the Rapide S saloon, having been ousted, for the DB11 and the new DBS, by a new twin-turbo V12. And even the new forced-induction motor retains the old one’s bore centres, and indeed the bore diameter itself. Clearly, the 5.9-litre V12’s days are numbered, but what a career the engine known as AE28 has had. It is popularly supposed to have started life in the prototype engineering department as two Ford Mondeo Duratec V6s welded together but, appealing…

BRUSQUE MIGHT SOUND like a piece of toast floating in your soup, but it’s a fair description of John Heffernan, car designer’s car designer and the man who penned Aston Martin’s 1988 Virage and 1990s Vantage models. ‘I don’t like “penned”,’ he growls softly. ‘Journalists are always writing “this or that car was penned”, as if it was just a few drawings and it just happened. In fact the design process is all about following the project through, working with the engineers; it’s very involved.’ So not penned, then… Not that Heffernan is a rude man. Not a bit of it, he’s kind and welcoming, just slightly prickly, like a Jack Russell fished out of a tub of hair gel. His clipped diction is as precise as his trimmed beard…

THE CONTRIBUTION OF POLISH PILOTS to the defence of Britain during the Second World War is widely appreciated. But how many car enthusiasts know that without several gentlemen of Polish descent there would be no Aston Martin brand as we know it today? Surprising, but absolutely true. As a Pole based in Britain, I’ve long been fascinated by their stories, which is why I’m setting out on a journey that will celebrate the part each of them has played in the Aston story. Our transport: a DB11 AMR, and our first stop Brooklands, the spiritual home of British motorsport. Among the ghosts that circle the vast banking, one Count Louis Zborowski, and a more colourful character you couldn’t hope to meet… Louis Vorow Zborowski, Count de Mountsaulvain, was a vastly…

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: D1903 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…

THOSE OF US WITH moderately long memories might well recall the last time AML tried to revive the Lagonda name with a super-luxury SUV. The awkward-looking 2009 concept drew gasps of shock and a few snorts of laughter when it was revealed to the world’s media, though with hindsight Aston’s then CEO, Dr Ulrich Bez, should be praised for his prescience of the coming trend for ultra-high-end SUVs. However, even Bez couldn’t have imagined the idea would be revisited ten years later with an all-electric concept of quite such audacity. Last year, you’ll remember, Lagonda was the surprise star of the Geneva show with the Vision Concept: an ultra-luxurious and fantastically futuristic four-seater that dropped the jaws of all who saw it. Of course it’s easy to do that with…

ASTON MARTIN HAS ANNOUNCED a serious increase in its commitment to the burgeoning historic racing scene with the creation of Aston Martin Heritage Racing (AMHR), a new over-arching brand that unites the marque’s assorted historic motorsport activities. Fans of Aston Martin’s modern competition heritage will be thrilled at the news that the triennial Aston Martin Racing Le Mans Festival events held as support races for the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2012, 2015 and 2018 have been developed into an annual AMHR Festival Series. This new ‘home’ for owners of eligible modern-era competition and special series Astons encompasses the majority of Aston Martin Racing’s back catalogue. All GT1, GT2, GT3, GT4 and GTE cars are eligible, with the exception of the Lola-Aston LMP1 prototypes and the latest-generation Vantage GTE, GT3…

email us eds@vantagemag.co.uk write to us Vantage Magazine Editorial, Dennis Publishing, 31-32 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP Driving a bargain Lovely to see VMF 65, the ex-works DB2, in your last issue (Winter 2018), being driven by Darren Turner at the Goodwood Revival race meeting. I owned this car back in the early 1960s, albeit very briefly… The black-and-white photo was taken outside the officers’ mess at RAF Catterick on the night in 1963 when I bought VMF from one Flight Lt Bloomfield for the princely sum of £250. (PUM 6 was the ex-Arnold Burton rally car, which I had bought a few months earlier, also for £250!) I’d taken my boss’s son along to drive my new purchase home – which made it tricky the next day when the…

IF THE 003 HAD APPEARED a few years ago, its natural rivals would have been the so-called ‘Holy Trinity’ of McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder and LaFerrari. Of the trio it’s the LaFerrari (above left) that Aston most desires to be compared with, though environmental pressures and technological progress dictate that the 003 will be powered by a turbocharged V6, and not a wailing V12. The big question hangs on whether it will be hybrid. The smart money suggests it will, as the P1, 918 and LaFerrari all featured hybrid powertrains, as will their successors. Unless, of course, McLaren or Porsche makes its next hypercar an EV… McLaren is still a relative newcomer to the scene, but its prolific output has seen the Woking marque make a big impact across…

History has a strange and, at times, frustrating ability to gloss over the truth, especially when it gets in the way of a conveniently simple narrative. Marie Antoinette never suggested anyone ate cake, Einstein did not flunk maths at school and the evidence for Hitler being uni-testicular is mixed at best. Likewise, the DB7 is not the car that saved Aston Martin. Hell of a thing to say, I know, but the truth is not so clear cut. Yes, the DB7’s role was crucial to the company’s survival because without it Ford would have shut the doors at once; but it was another car, the DB7 Vantage you see here, that did far more to convince Ford that Aston Martin was worthy of long term investment. Semantics? Not at all.…

THE AIM COULDN’T HAVE BEEN CLEARER. ‘I want us to build a racing car that can take on the big-engined Ferraris,’ said David Brown. At the time, Aston Martin had no real basis for such a car so this was a huge ambition, but then ambition was never something Brown lacked. What follows is a salutary tale, but also evidence of the immense skills and capability that would lead Aston Martin to its many successes – with other cars. Success rarely comes without heartache along the way and the V12-engined Lagonda provided plenty of that. Brown had bought Lagonda in 1947, chiefly to acquire the WO Bentley and Willie Watson-created LB6 (Lagonda Bentley) 6-cylinder engine that would later power the DB2. But there was more to the acquisition than the…

STANLEY ‘WACKY’ ARNOLT was generally untroubled by self-doubt, as he demonstrated on September 26, 1938, when he crossed a treacherous Lake Michigan in a tiny boat to prove the reliability of his Sea-Mite marine engine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wacky was a man of faith; he kept an electric organ in his office and would belt out hymns for visitors to the Arnolt Corporation, a business so bewilderingly multifarious that he referred to it simply as a ‘job shop’. Too irrepressible, too Christian and too busy to have held a grudge, then, but Wacky would surely have allowed himself a chuckle at Aston’s expense had he been around to see this year’s Scottsdale auctions. Sixteen Astons were offered in the Arizona desert in January, but none attracted more attention than Wacky’s special-bodied…

IF YOU’RE SERIOUS about building mid-engined supercars you have to tackle Ferrari head-on. That’s a truly formidable challenge, even for Ferrari’s age-old adversary Lamborghini, which enjoys a half-century of mid-engined heritage, prodigious VW Group resources and a pre-eminent position as the maker of poster cars for successive generations of pubescent car fans. That Aston Martin would position itself as a worthy rival to Ferrari was never in doubt. That it would do so with an aluminium-tubbed car is perhaps more of a surprise, given Valkyrie and 003 are both crafted from carbonfibre. Yet, as both the Ferrari 488 (above left) and Lamborghini Huracán (right) feature aluminium chassis, it remains the class norm. Indeed, of the main players only McLaren has committed to an all-carbon family of cars, a decision motivated…

MY WIFE AND I WERE visiting London from the US in 1999 and walking in Mayfair we spotted an Aston Martin DB7 parked on the street. Astons were much rarer in 1999 than they are now and this was the first DB7 we had ever seen. We thought it was the most beautiful car, and when we returned to California we went to an Aston dealer, test drove a DB7 and placed an order. I was back in the UK on business in 2000, a few months before our car was due, and was able to arrange a visit to the factory in Bloxham. The cars were manually pushed from station to station. The engines were delivered fully assembled but the rest of the car was hand-assembled. I remember there…

I CAME TO NORTH YORKSHIRE the very first time I drove the then-all-new V8 Vantage. It was an assignment for Vantage’s sister magazine, evo, and I can still recall the fizz of anticipation and excitement. Its tight, chiselled shape was so good. And then there was the novelty of a new ‘affordable’ Aston. With a starting price of £79,995, not only was it the hottest thing Aston had offered in a generation but it brought the brand within reach of those who previously could but dream. Naturally the evo test team wasted no time in putting the new baby Aston through its paces, with a 1000-mile, 36-hour, three-driver relay. Jethro Bovingdon collected the Vantage from Gaydon and drove it to Black Rock Sands in North Wales; then John Barker drove…

In front of us is a laptop: there’s a video on it, and telemetry, but for now racing driver Stuart Moseley and I are concentrating on a small whiteboard instead. It’s about the size of a place-mat, and on it is printed the layout of Donington Park National Circuit. I’m 45, yet today I’m back to school. The best kind of education, though, with Aston Martin’s new AMR Academy – part of a range of track activities now being offered to customers under the AMR Drivers’ Club banner. Over two days I’ll be repeating lines, not as punishment, but to find the fastest way around the circuit. Moseley is drawing what should be the perfect one around Turn 1, Redgate, the corner that is so far proving my nemesis… I’ve…

Some garages are too good to be true. Squeaky-clean, no sign of real renovation being done, lacking in metal-bashing, rust-banishing, oil-infused realism. They keep the dirty, really physical stuff hidden away while parading the clinical cleanliness that makes customers feel better about the cheques they’ll be writing. Four Ashes Garage is not like that. Four Ashes Garage, at Pathlow on the old A34 between Stratford-on-Avon and Birmingham, is a proper garage. It looks as if it should have a showroom, but the space is filled with boxes and parts in what looks to me like chaotic disarray. ‘I know where everything is,’ says co-proprietor Jean Moss. ‘Now, come with me to the workshop and mind you don’t trip over anything.’ Business partner and husband Chris Adams is aware that stock…