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2022 Aston Martin Vanquish to offer a manual transmission

The retail versions of the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Valhalla remain a ways off, but carmaker CEO Andy Palmer but has given us something to look forward to beyond the flagship hypercar and its baby brother. Palmer told Australian outlet Car Sales that the Vanquish would be offered with a manual transmission. The pledge fulfills Palmer's previous statement "that I want to be the last manufacturer in the world to offer manual sports cars, and I want to honor that commitment." There's at least one potential caveat with this: The seven-speed dogleg manual transmission recently released for the Vantage AMR forced a reduction in power numbers. The gearbox, developed with transmission maker Graziano to work with the Mercedes-AMG-sourced 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8, cut torque to 461 pound-feet compared to 505 lb-ft in the automatic-equipped coupe. The detune added 0.3 seconds to the 0-60 mph time, but we're confident buyers were happy with the compromise and tech bits that allowed full-throttle upshifts and rev-matching downshifts. The Vanquish will use an electrified, twin-turbocharged, 3.0-liter six-cylinder developed in-house at Aston Martin. Even so, with a lot more power and torque expected in order for the Vanquish to stand above the Vantage and battle the Ferrari F8 Tributo, McLaren 720 S, and Lamborghini Huracan, buyers could again face abridged output. Aston Martin hasn't said a word about figures, but the F8 and 720 S already crest 700 hp and bring 568 lb-ft. The Valhalla, which will use the same engine as the Vanquish but is predicted to pack around 1,000 hp, will forgo the manual. Palmer told Car Sales, "that car will only come with a paddleshift transmission." As with the Ferrari, but unlike the McLaren and the Lamborghini, the Vanquish gets a bonded aluminum tub instead of carbon. Aston Martin designed carbon tubs for the Valkyrie and Valhalla for "owners happy to sacrifice comfort for ultimate speed." Palmer explained the Vanquish's intended daily-driver usability drove the choice for aluminum, which permits a lower, narrower sill for easier ingress and egress. Having two architectures is more expensive for the small company, but Palmer explained, "Unlike McLaren we're not trying to stretch the same assets over and over again. Our approach is ... hopefully ...

The Windsor Castle Concours d'Elegance in pictures, courtesy of Bentley

Bentley went to the Windsor Castle Concours of Elegance as the main sponsor and showed off six of its best among the gathering of "60 of the finest motor cars in the world," including the 4¼-liter Bentley 'Embiricos' Special built for a Greek shipping magnate and gentleman racer in the 1930s.
Even better, for us at least, is that when Bentley decided to capture the moment it took pictures of most of the metal on the lawn, not just the Bentleys. Thanks to that, we have a high-res gallery that's home to rarities like the Vauxhall 30-98 Type OE Boattail Wensum Tourer, beauties like the Bugatti Type 57S Atalante, long-tail Ford GT40, Maserati Tipo 60 Birdcage, Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato, a sinister Ferrari 250 GTO and the even more sinister Rolls-Royce Phantom Aerodynamic Coupe, among others. All you need to do now is click and enjoy.

Aston Martin Vantage V12 Zagato goes back into limited production

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato in 2011, Aston Martin worked with Zagato Milano to create the Vantage V12 Zagato. Aston Martin made 101 of the special editions, available only as a coupe. This year, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Milanese design house, Swiss motorsport company AF Racing has commissioned 38 examples of the Vantage V12 Zagato, consisting of 19 coupes and 19 roadsters. The official name of the redux is Aston Martin Vantage V12 Zagato Heritage TWINS by R-Reforged. When Aston Martin originally announced production they planned to build 150 units, but for unknown reasons that number fell to 101 units. Since no specs have been mentioned, our guess is that the 6.0-liter V12 with 510 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque goes unchanged. As far as we can tell, the only differences between these new versions and the previous builds is that the coupe omits the rear spoiler, there's a wider selection of colors, and you can alternatively choose to take the top off. As for the entities behind this, the press release lays out a web of connections we're not totally clear on. The relevant matters are that AF Racing is a Swiss motorsport company that's a project partner on the Aston Martin Valkyrie, and it has a sub-brand called R-Reforged devoted to production-car projects. AF Racing owns a subsidiary in Germany called Vynamic that oversees four Aston Martin Vantage race cars competing in the German DTM Series. Vynamic will actually build the new V12 Zagatos. The rest of the tangled web doesn't matter. AF Racing says deliveries of the new coupes and speedsters will commence at the end of this year. No price has been mentioned, but the original coupes went for 330,000 pounds at the time, which would be $429,000 right now, and probably a good place to start.