One of Aston's new owners puts F430 and Gallardo on notice
Now this is what we're talking about. A couple of days ago, Kuwati Investment Dar was discussing its intention to sell its share of Aston Martin. John Sinders, the American investment banker who also backed Dave Richards, is talking about the kinds of things we like to hear about Aston: racing, one-offs, lightweight variants, and limited editions.
Sinders says his role is to help build the brand, enlarge the dealer network, and to develop better engines that, with Bez at the helm, would remain naturally aspirated. Then he says a single-make race series is being discussed (check out the Vantage N24), and he wants to get Aston back in the ALMS -- but Aston won't enter Formula 1. He outlined a 4-model range for Aston: sports car (Vantage), GT (DB9), sport sedan (Rapide), and a halo car (Bond, anyone?), with the efforts going into developing those cars to be the best in their classes. And he nixed an SUV. But Aston doesn't just want a sports car: "We want to build the best sports car in the world. We fully intend to go straight at the Ferrari F430 and the Lamborghini Gallardo." The Vantage will need to spend quite a bit of time at the gym and the trainer's to pull that off, but there's an adjective to describe those kinds of words: fighting. We say, bring it. Click the link to check out the full interview.
[Source: Automobile magazine]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Andy 12:24PM (5/09/2007)
Is that green lipstick on the front? Ewww.
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matt waterman 7:30AM (5/30/2007)
What a Cool looking car bet that cost about £200.000
shame about the green mouth on the front
Matt
www.dccook.co.uk
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Joe K. 12:40PM (5/09/2007)
Irony rears its head with the statement from Aston about building a Halo car. I guess i am just not rich enough to see certain Astons as daily drivers. Soon though I hope.
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The FedEx Man 12:55PM (5/09/2007)
Numero 2. Thats the N24, basically a stripped out vantage race car (Ulrich Bez raced one at the Nürburgring 24 Hours) - but can be made road legal with only minor alterations (in the UK anyway). Cost; a surprisingly low £82,000.
Thank go they siad no to an SUV.
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adb 1:03PM (5/09/2007)
Sinders ought to take a stroll through his own showroom. The DB9 is currently priced within throwing distance of the F430 and Gallardo. If he adds a mid-engine car at the same price point, it's going to be slicing the loaf awfully thin to justify two similarly sized cars at that price point, unless he plans to either drop the DB9 or make it much less sporty.
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FLR 1:11PM (5/09/2007)
Aston saying they want to take on the F430 or Gallardo? Aston can't beat the Corvette Z06. The Z06 owned the Aston's big time in the GT racing class.
Astons have always been about class to me, not race tracks. Look at an Aston interior. Very elegant and expensive.
Now...look at a Ferrari. Um, yeah...it's um...shall I say, purpose driven. It's a frickin' race car with leather seats!
Aston is a GT car and they need to stay that way.
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Avinash machado 1:28PM (5/09/2007)
What about bringing back the Lagonda brand? Perhaps that could be used for an SUV so as not to dilute Aston's image.
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The FedEx Man 1:29PM (5/09/2007)
I agree with your comment - Astons are GT cars, they suit that layed back imagine. But please don't try and draw parralels between the LM cars and the road ones. It's stupid, they share bugger all with each other appart from maybe the lights and doors. A slightly better class of racing to look at is the GT3 - which the Astons came 3rd in first race 3rd and in the second, while the highest corvette was 2nd in the first, and retired. Just shows if you pick and choose your race series anything can be proven...
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Bert 1:55PM (5/09/2007)
For those of you who don't like the green 'lipstick', I do believe that the other option is a hot-pink. Any takers? Anyone?
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Proud Japanese 2:07PM (5/09/2007)
arunkshrestha@gmail.com
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Proud Japanese 2:12PM (5/09/2007)
@FLR:
in alms 2006 vette beat aston, 5 out of 9. hardly getting owned. take into fact that the vettes are factory supported
lets look at other results
in fia gt 2006, aston beat vette 6 out of 9. these vettes were privately fielded
in fia gt3 2006, aston beat vette 6 out of 8.
in lms 2006, aston beat vette 4 out of 4
in alms 2005, vette beat aston 2 out of 3
in fia gt 2005, aston beat vette 3 out of 5
the only time vette seems to do will is when it has factory support. when it comes to private teams aston comes on top. now that prodrive has acquired aston lets see what happens.
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FLR 2:58PM (5/09/2007)
#11 You are correct. However, ALMS saddled the Vette with 500 extra pounds to try to make the races fair. Even with the extra weight the Vettes were still able to win a lot of races.
That in a nutshell is what I hate about a lot of this type of racing. The cars are production based. If you want to compete then build and sell a better car.
Don't get me started on NASCAR. I didn't know that Toyota built a two door V8 rear wheel drive solid axle Camry. Sigh.
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Proud Japanese 4:07PM (5/09/2007)
@FLR: According to this article, Chevrolet doesn't use a standard engine block or a standard chassis frame, so I guess everything evens out.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/12175/aston-martin-dbr9.html
"Despite howling from the Chevrolet and Aston teams about how much parity the organizers allowed — and despite justifiable complaints from Aston that the Corvettes use neither standard engine blocks nor a standard chassis frame — the result was fantastic racing."
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The FedEx Man 4:12PM (5/09/2007)
"The cars are production based"
Production based my arse :). The GT1 racers share next to no functional parts. They may look the same but they're very different beats - barely anything is carried over; perhaps the doors, roof lights. Its like comparing the DTM Merc CLK with the road going one; the racers covered in carbon fibre, the suspensions never seen the production car, and the engines been shoved back to where the steering wheel usually is. Even the way the bonnet (hood, sorry) opens in't the same. Saying the road performance can be judged by the race cars is just stupid. If you want to rate performance cars by the number of races they've won, then Porschewin - 17 Le Man victories and a lot more class ones.
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grimey559 4:58PM (5/09/2007)
#13
The C6.R chassis is the steel frame base C6 Corvette versus the Aluminum frame from the C6 Z06.
#14
Being production base means the cars a built from a stock frame or chassis.GT 1 cars are not purpose built from tube frames, so that means they are production based.
DTM cars are purpose built tube frame chassis.
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Proud Japanese 5:10PM (5/09/2007)
I'm sorry but you can't call the cars production based when they don't even use the same suspension.
I mean if the Z06 uses leaf springs, the least I could expect is C6.R to use leaf springs which isn't the case.
http://www.corvetteracing.com/cars/c6r/chassis_specs.shtml
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Bob-o 5:15PM (5/09/2007)
The Gallardo is now a benchmark for sports cars? What has this world come to...
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grimey559 6:05PM (5/09/2007)
Based: being derived from
Yes, you can still it called production based. Because it is based on the production car and built to the rules specified by the ACO.
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Proud Japanese 6:21PM (5/09/2007)
Then any car that has the outer body shell that looks like the production car can be called production based.
How exactly are the coil-overs derived from leaf springs.
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grimey559 6:34PM (5/09/2007)
Now you're just being ridiculous.
Where are you getting outer body shell from?
All ACO compliant cars are built from production car frames.
All ACO compliant cars are allowed some modifications from the production car.
How can you not understand what based means?
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