These picture just appeared on the Facebook and Twitter feeds of Top Gear Live UK. The Stig meets the new Vanquish! They’re shooting a new TV ad for Top Gear Live, to appear on the UK TV channel Dave starting September 3.
Yes, you read that right. GTspirit tested the V12 Vantage. Wait, what? Do I mean the V12 Vantage Roadster maybe? Nope, the regular coupe version, that’s been around for over 3 years now. Judging from the text, it sounds like they just got to drive a V12 Vantage, while reviewing the 2012 facelift of the V8 Vantage. Oh well, their article does provide some good insights into the difference between the V8 and V12 versions of the Vantage. Next to that, looking at their photos it looks like they got to drive a very special V12 Vantage, an ultra-rare Carbon Edition.
Artist Ian Cook (aka PopBangColour) created this Bugatti Veyron Art Car to be the main attraction at the Wilton Classic and Supercar Festival. This car, also called the BugARTi, is wrapped in classic Gulf colors and features the Aston Martin LMP1 “009” race car on its’ right flank. (The left side shows a Porsche 917 Le Mans car.)
This weekend, the Wilton Classic and Supercar Day was held at Wilton House. Several beautiful Aston Martin’s were present at this event, including the new Vanquish and the V12 Zagato. Here’s a collection of Aston pictures I found on GFWilliams.net Photography and GTSpirit.com.
At yesterday’s Power Beauty Soulmates club meeting, 10 Aston Martin’s showed up for a nice tour in the eastern part of the Netherlands (PBSM is a dutch Aston Martin club).
Aston Martin just released a cool video shot during the Boxberg event, three weeks ago. At Boxberg, 40 Aston Martin’s were present for a day of driving fun at the Bosch test center, including my red V12 Vantage. You can see my red monster a couple of times in the video: My own Boxberg 2012 story is here.
The first time this red V12 Roadster was spotted, in the Netherlands, we already suspected it was heading towards Aston’s testcenter at the Nürburgring. And it looks like we were right, because today the same car was seen near the Ring. Luckily, this time we have better pics, taking by spotter “whoopyload”:
Richard Meaden of evo magazine gets to join Aston Martin engineer Ian Hartley to test a Vanquish prototype on a frozen lake in Sweden: Source: evo.co.uk
Last week I already posted spy shots of a possible Rapide S. And today, both Autocar.co.uk and Leftlanenews.com came with more rumors about this future Rapide. Both sites claim that next year’s Rapide will get the new V12 from the Vanquish. Which means it may get up to 565hp, but it also possible that the engine will be downtuned somewhat for the Rapide. The question still remains: will this just be the new MY2013 Rapide, replacing the current Rapide, or will it be a new Rapide S model, positioned next to the Rapide. Currently my guess is that this new Rapide will replace the old one.
There never was a convertible version of the old Vanquish, but it’s highly likely that there will be a Volante edition of the fantastic new Vanquish. It will probably be announced in 2013, with first customer cars being delivered in 2014. Some photoshop artists couldn’t wait that long and decided to render their own interpretations of a Vanquish Volante.