2006 Aston Martin Vantage V-8 on 2040-cars

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Here's Aston Martin's DP-100 racer for Gran Turismo in all its virtual glory [w/video]

After a little bit of teasing, Aston Martin is finally unveiling its Design Prototype 100 Vision Gran Turismo Concept at the Goodwood Festival of Speed that makes it into Gran Turismo 6 in July. With the DP-100, the company's designers have gotten a chance to shrug off the shackles of realism and create the first-ever Aston Martin "road car" with the engine mounted behind the driver. Designed and engineered over the course of six months by the Aston Martin Design team, the crew started from a clean sheet of paper and were allowed to design whatever they liked with no concerns about production feasibility. At the front, there's the brand's classic grille shape, but otherwise the concept is completely original. The shape of the DP-100 is beautifully simple, looking like a collection of intersecting arches in profile. Of course, in Gran Turismo 6, gamers are going to want to race the car more than look at it. The DP-100 employs Aston Martin's famous V12 engine coupled with two turbochargers to produce 800 horsepower. Active aerodynamic aids keep it planted during cornering, as well. Aston Martin previously hinted that it might show off a physical version of the concept at this year's Goodwood Festival. Although, we haven't seen it yet, the concept would fit perfectly next to Nissan's own Vision Gran Turismo design at the celebration of all things automotive. Scroll down to watch a video of the DP-100's designers talking about the car and read the official release. ASTON MARTIN UNVEILS VIRTUAL DP-100 RACER FOR GRAN TURISMO®6 Design Prototype 100 joins stable of Vision Gran Turismo racers in popular racing game for PlayStation®3 Designed and engineered over six months by Aston Martin Design team Downloadable for in-game play in July 2014 Aston Martin is unveiling an exceptional new addition to the hugely popular PlayStation®3 exclusive racing game Gran Turismo®6 (GT6™) in the shape of the stunning Design Prototype 100 – DP-100 Vision Gran Turismo. Developed in-house by the Design team at Aston Martin, led by Design Director Marek Reichman, DP-100 Vision Gran Turismo is a new, virtual-only GT racer that will be available for Gran Turismo®6 (GT6™) owners to download in July 2014, following the global launch at Goodwood Festival of Speed. Starting with nothing but the traditional 'blank sheet of paper' the design team and design engineers worked for six months to create the new addition to the Vision Gran Turismo stable of race cars.

Next Aston Vantage will be the only way to get an AMG V8 with a stick

With only a few exceptions, most of them factory customs, AMG hasn't built cars with manual transmissions. It just isn't the way things are done in Affalterbach. But now that Mercedes's in-house speed shop will be supplying engines to Aston Martin, the world will be treated to cars with three pedals and overengineered German V8s wrapped in a pretty British package. We're into it. The news comes from Car and Driver, which spoke to Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer about the new Vantage among other things. Palmer confirms to C/D that the Vantage will continue to offer manual and automatic transmissions when the next-gen car arrives featuring the AMG 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8. In its most potent form, the eight-cylinder makes 503 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque in the AMG GT S. Figure on a little more from the Aston-ized version, just for fun. The current V8 Vantage GT makes 430 hp and 361 lb-ft from its naturally aspirated 4.7-liter. While some may lament the new engine's forced induction, that added power and the thoroughly modern behavior of the AMG engine should be welcome. While the AMG V8 is currently only planned to go into Aston's entry-level car, C/D does mention a possibility of it (and perhaps its three-pedal transmission) making its way into other cars as an economy option for certain markets. If a V8 DB11 were to be offered, don't expect it to show up here, though. There's also no word on who will supply the manual for the AMG-Aston mashup, but it likely will be a transaxle like the current Vantage. Ex-factory manual AMGs aren't totally unprecedented. Pagani has built some three-pedal cars with its massaged AMG V12s. Compared to those, however, these manual Vantages can be considered mass-production cars. And really, any increase in the number of sticks mated to AMG engines can only be a good thing. Related Video: News Source: Car and Driver Aston Martin Mercedes-Benz Coupe Performance mercedes-amg confirmed aston martin v8 vantage aston martin vantage

2022 Aston Martin DBX Review | 2 exceptional cars for the price of 2

PORTLAND, ORE. – It is so easy to greet the Aston Martin DBX with a great big eye roll. Here we go again, yet another purveyor of beautiful sporting machines selling out to produce a bloated SUV that's utterly anathema to all the cars that came before. Yet another cynical brand exercise where some classic styling cues and a desirable badge are applied to someone else's SUV platform. And yet another SUV that's hopelessly compromised by those same brand affectations. Worse, this is Aston Martin. If you take away the DB5-derived body style and GT driving experience, what exactly are you left with? Aren't those the best reasons to buy one instead of a Porsche? In other words, the arrival of a $222,000 Aston Martin wasn't necessarily greeted by giddy clapping and the score of "Goldfinger" turned up to 11. Skepticism would be the word. Yet, immediately, it started to erode. It may be an SUV and certainly bloated compared to a Vantage, but it sure is pretty. And not just because of that trademark grille and Vantage-like ducktail. It's all about the proportions. The pronounced body-length shoulder line and inboard fastback greenhouse may evoke Aston's cars, but it also avoids the tall, slab-like profile of a Porsche Cayenne and most other SUVs. The wheels are pushed to the corners, elongating the body and creating the sort of long hood, short deck proportions one expects from a two-door GT and definitely not an SUV. Even without the styling cues, the thing looks like an Aston Martin. The DBX is also not on "someone else's SUV platform," it was created by Aston Martin for Aston Martin. So unlike the Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus and earlier Cayennes, Aston Martin didn't need to contend with the sort of existing, unchangeable hard points that lead to awkward proportions. This can also have practical benefits. Take that elongated wheelbase, for example, which is 2.6 inches longer than the Bentayga's despite the entire DBX being 3.4 inches shorter. Much like the similarly from-scratch Jaguar F-Pace, I suspect Aston Martin made the DBX wheelbase so long for the aforementioned aesthetic reasons and because, unshackled by an existing platform, it could. Yet, like the F-Pace, the happy side effect to a long wheelbase is extra interior space. In the DBX, the amount of extra space is genuinely surprising. We fit an enormous Britax rear-facing child seat in the rear and had the front passenger seat pushed far enough back for someone 6-foot-3 to comfortably sprawl out.