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Aston Martin to open test center at Silverstone, British racing's Mecca

LONDON — Aston Martin will open a test and development center at Silverstone, the home of British Formula One racing, as the luxury carmaker continues to expand ahead of a possible stock market offering. James Bond's car brand of choice is undergoing a turnaround plan designed to boost its model lineup, quadruple volumes and produce its first sport utility vehicle at a new plant in Wales. The firm, which sponsors the Red Bull Formula One team, said its Silverstone site would open in October and employ 60 people. Many Formula One teams have been based close to Silverstone in central England, leading the area to become known as motorsport valley. Silverstone hosted the first Formula One championship race in 1950. "The company is now investing for growth across the Aston Martin and Lagonda brands," said Chief Executive Andy Palmer in a statement, also announcing the opening of a central London office. Aston said the new locations would help increase the firm's total workforce by over half to 5,000 by the end of 2022. After six years of losses, Aston Martin swung to a pretax profit in 2017, and the company has said it is considering a stock market IPO, which sources have told Reuters could come as soon as this year. Reporting by Costas PitasRelated Video:

Aston Martin Vanquish 25 by Callum begins Ian Callum's next act

In June, Ian Callum retired from his post as Jaguar's design boss. In July, the man with an elegant and luxurious public resume extending more than two decades started Ian Callum Design with a few former colleagues. Callum said the full-service design and engineering house would create and comprehensively upgrade vehicles, and that he'd "like to take some of the cars I've designed and maybe redo them a little bit." That initiative starts with the Aston Martin Vanquish 25, a thorough rework of the original Vanquish Callum built from 2001 to 2007, when Ford counted the English brand in its stable.  With the goal being to "make the Vanquish the Grand Tourer for the 2020s," the broad strokes remain — as it should be, seeing how much they still appeal. More than 100 overall detail changes begin with the redesigned front fascia, with a sharper-edged upper grille sitting above a larger lower intake. Projector headlamps give way to four high-intensity LEDs, and the lower fog lamps are replaced by carbon fiber vents to channel airflow to the front brakes. An "intimidating" mien starts with dark grille strakes supplanting the chrome bars of yore, the dark mood continuing with the one-piece carbon fiber window surround and carbon fiber hood vents and fender vent strakes. Gone are the scalloped sills, replaced by convex carbon fiber rockers that blend into the new curve of the lower rear fenders. In back, new taillights rest atop a new bumper that wraps around a large diffuser with integrated exhaust pipes. The cost-cutting Jaguar XK side mirrors — Ford owned Jaguar at the time, too — are gone, newly designed units with built-in turn signals taking their places.  When we drove a 2005 Vanquish in 2015, we wrote that while the greater part of the coupe held up to time, the interior did the opposite. Callum has fixed that, turning the original coupe's blocky, vertical center console into a sloping waterfall unit in carbon fiber. At the top of the center console, a removable Bremont pocket watch. Below that, no more Jaguar switchgear, but an eight-inch media display touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, carbon fiber buttons and aluminum dials. A thinner steering wheel and reshaped paddle shifters sit ahead of a dash cluster designed by watchmaker Bremont.  New front seats with deeper sculpting sit lower in the cabin, clothed in the same cross-stitched Bridge of Weir leather as the rest of the cockpit.

Aston Martin DBS 770 announced as high-horsepower swan song

Aston Martin will send off the DBS with a limited-edition model called 770 Ultimate. Due out later in 2023, the coupe will stand out from the regular-production model with a more powerful engine, several chassis-related changes, and a handful of edition-specific design details. Aston Martin calls the car "the ultimate finale to a bloodline" and pledges that the coupe will "surpass them all." It adds that the 770 Ultimate will feature a "re-engineered, sharper dynamic focus coupled with exquisite design." That's pretty vague, but there's a big hint potentially hidden in the name: 770 could refer to the engine's output. The DBX 707 uses an evolution of the standard SUV's twin-turbocharged, 4.0-liter V8 tuned to develop 707 pferdestarke, which is the German word for metric horsepower that's often abbreviated as PS. Applying this logic to the 770 Ultimate strongly suggests the model will gain a 770-pferdestarke version of the twin-turbocharged, 5.2-liter V12 that powers the standard DBS. That number converts to about 759 horsepower. In comparison, the DBS puts 715 horsepower under the driver's right foot. That's enough for a 3.3-second sprint from zero to 60 mph. We're guessing that the Ultimate will retain an eight-speed automatic transmission, and suspension modifications should give it sharper handling. Aston Martin will release additional details about the DBS 770 Ultimate in the coming weeks, and the model is scheduled to make its debut in early 2023 — a specific date hasn't been published yet. Production will be limited to 499 units globally, and we expect a base price of well over $300,000. As for what's next, your guess is as good as ours: Aston Martin hasn't announced whether it will replace the DBS. Related Video: