Just when you thought an Aston Martin couldn’t look any sexier, along comes this new creation from Aston’s partnership with Italian design house Zagato.
It’s called the Vanquish Zagato Concept and it was one of the headliners at the recent ritzy Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este car show on the banks of Lake Como, Italy.
This is the fifth Aston to wear the famous Zagato badge; the first was the magical DB4GT Zagato back in 1960, one of which sold last December in an RM Sotheby’s auction for a staggering $14.3 million. Not a bad return on investment when you consider it cost $7,900 new.
As the name suggests, this concept is based closely on Aston Martin’s hairy-chested Vanquish V12 coupe, though pretty much every body panel has been changed.
And what a body. It’s a joint design effort between Aston Martin design chief Marek Reichman and Zagato’s CEO and head of design Andrea Zagato, but the car itself was engineered and built entirely at Aston’s Gaydon Headquarters in the United Kingdom.
The Vanquish Zagato Concept doesn’t try to be some crazy, futuristic supercar sitting two feet off the ground. There’s classic elegance here, with that huge trademark Aston grille giving a dynamic nod to Aston’s past. Yet it nicely incorporates muscular elements from the upcoming Aston DB11 and the recent One-77 supercar.
The new body parts—essentially everything beneath the skin is production Vanquish—are all carbon fiber and made in large one-piece panels to reduce visually unappealing “shut-lines” or panel gaps.
The roof line is nothing short of dramatic, with its distinctive Zagato “double bubbles,” a trademark Zagato design feature since the 1950s. These twin lumps in the roof were originally installed to accommodate racing helmets while having minimum impact on aerodynamics. They’ve stuck ever since.
Inside there’s a Z-for-Zagato quilt pattern on the seats and doors, with Zagato’s Z logo embossed in the headrests and center console. The dash is all gorgeous aniline leather, anodized bronze, and carbon-fiber weave.
Mechanical changes are minor: The naturally aspirated 5.9-liter V-12 gets a power hike from 568-hp to 591-hp, while the car’s adaptive dampers have been retuned to offer sharper, tighter handling.
For now, both Aston Martin and Zagato are calling this Vanquish Zagato Concept exactly that—a one-off concept. But because the prices and collectability of all previous Aston Zagatos are through the roof, it won’t be long before a production Vanquish Zagato is announced.
A run of 100 cars at, say, $500,000 each should turn a tidy profit. Start forming an orderly line now.
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