Aftermarket October 2022

BY Andrew Marsh, Engineering Director, Auto Industry Consulting Ltd A ston Martin Lagonda has often struggled to shine in the shadow of more famous makes such as Ferrari, Lamborghini or, back in the 1960s, Maserati. Then as now, each make drew particular clients, and a few clients likes most of the makes. Consider Aston Martin in the early 1980s; Once again it faced a difficult time, based on an annual production of 200 vehicles with a clientele who frequently not only knew ’people’ but often were ‘the great and the good’. For example, the co-owner of the company had a personal income of circa $1 million a week, back then. Company Chairman Victor Gauntlett had some big problems. The product line was the V8 range evolved from the 1967 DBS, and the Lagonda, powered by a derivative of the same 5.34 litre quad cam engine. The engineering department had been spun out as Aston Martin Tickford, and then sold off to become Tickford. The in-house designer Simon Saunders, founder and owner of Aerial Motor Co., had done some clever body kits of the Lagonda, as well as various Tickford commissions, but in essence the new car pipeline was empty. There were many projects underway to comply with emission regulations, including electronic fuel injection for the old V8, new four valve-per-cylinder heads and engine management for the update, as well as what would become Virage. So, how can a new car appear at next to no cost to create additional cash flow? Enter Zagato. They had built 19 uniquely bodied DB4 GTs in the early 1960s, which were effective competition cars - except the Ferrari GTO was usually ahead. In the 1980s Zagato had built bodies for the Maserati Biturbo (coupe as well as cabriolet). A cunning plan was born; Use the V8 coupe platform with the highest output carburettor 22 AFTERMARKET OCTOBER 2022 TECHNICAL www.aftermarketonline.net FAST ASTON MARTINS Andrew remembers when Aston Martin went down the supercar route, a journey that included a supporting role for himself in the process 5.34l V8 engine, with door structures, A pillar and lower B pillar from the Maserati Biturbo, clothed in super expensive glass and panels made in the finest Italian tradition of tree stump bashing. Why do this? Well, the Type Approval of doors (security and safety), seat belts and so on was expensive. By using existing components which were already Type Approved, the authorities could see documents that applied from the Maserati BiTurbo to the Aston Martin V8 coupe. The new car created a huge fuss, and came as the supercar market went through one of its cyclic highs. There was no way this could reach the then-fashionable 200 miles per hour, but it could reach 300 kilometres per hour. So, a demo run was planned ahead of the 1986 Le Mans, which did not go too well. The project – to build 52 coupes – was self-funding and profitable. To prove the performance ahead of