Aston Martin launch the Vulcan The British car brand unveil their rarefied new racing car, which combines beauty with extreme speed
By Michael HarveyFebruary 25, 2015 00:05
Aston Martin VulcanEnlarge
Aston Martin Vulcan
Just four years after the first £1million Aston Martin, meet Vulcan — the two million pound Aston Martin. Rarity (only 24 will be made) and sheer performance (the thing is so fast it’s not even road-legal) account for the inflation, that and the promise that owners will be purchasing a piece of Aston Martin history.
The Vulcan - and whether you believe it to be drop dead beautiful or merely just as an arresting a motorcar as you’ve ever seen - is the start of something new at Aston Martin, something that promises to be big.
“It is extreme in every sense,” says its designer, Marek Reichman, and he’s not kidding. “It’s a project that reaches out to the pinnacle of performance and design. It’s a unique combination in that respect; an uncompromised track car that is also beautiful and does not ignore style and proportion.” Indeed, if only all racing cars looked this good.
Vulcan is a very 2015 kind of vehicle. A hypercar (and I’m sorry, I’ve yet to think if a better prefix than “hyper”) of such stratospheric performance it’s designed to entertain the lucky few who get to own one on racetracks only, never on the public road. As such it joins a club with currently just two members, the “plus” versions of the McLaren P1 and the LaFerrari, designated “GTR” and “FXX K” respectively. All three cars will be at next week’s Geneva motor show (as of course will Telegraph Luxury).
But where the McLaren and the Ferrari are evolutions of extraordinary road cars, the Vulcan has no such provenance. And for me at least that makes it rather more special. It is the first car to emerge from Aston Martin’s new era; new management (sought-after former Nissan product chief Andy Palmer), new partnerships (with Mercedes’ AMG division) and new money since Aston has been fund raising again, and doing so successfully.
So just as its predecessor on the pinnacle of Mount Aston - the £1m One-77 - was the sublime achievement of Aston under former CEO Ulrich Bez, the Vulcan might be seen as a statement of intent of where Palmer believes the company should be. And Palmer, remember, has only been in the job a few months. It’s only going to get better.
The Vulcan is the work of Sheffield-born Reichman, now dubbed Chief Creative Officer and head of studio since 2005, after which the basic shapes of the current Vantage and DB9 were cast. Reichman has been prolific to say the least. As well as updating the Vantage and the DB9 (with varying degrees of success) Reichman’s studio has shaped the Rapide, the latest Vanquish and its predecessor, the late-lamented DBS. On top of that there are the specials; the One-77, the Vantage Zagato and the Lagonda Taraf. The concepts; C100, DP100 and Lagonda SUV. And now finally the Vantage GT3 and the Vulcan.
And then there’s the DB10, the car that Daniel Craig will drive in Spectre. Both the DB10 and the Vulcan begin to write a new design language for Aston Martin, Reichman has said. But where the DB10 is limited by its structure - it is in reality just a re-tailored Vantage - the Vulcan has no such limitations as it’s build around a new carbon fibre-structure along the lines of race-cars, which in effect it is.
“This is very much a clean sheet of paper,” say Reichman. “Not only the ‘tub’ structure is in carbon but also all the body components. It’s got in-board, push-rod dampers, unique suspension, a hand-crafted race engine, a straight-cut sequential gear box and side exhausts. The sound is amazing.”
The 7.0-litre V12 engine is from the One-77, but further uprated along racing lines to produce 800bhp. It gives the car better power-to-weight ratio than the V12 Vantage Aston races at Le Mans, says the company (which is around 400bhp/tonne), meaning that Vulcan is a featherweight 1350kg.
Like the P1 GTR and the LaFerrari FXX K, Aston is promising to train its elite band of owners like racing drivers, including personal training on the track on simulators with the likes of Darren Turner, who’s scored two Le Mans class wins for Aston’s GT racing programme, a successful and global effort that the Vulcan celebrates.
Racing and Le Mans, one senses, are about to become as important to Aston Martin as James Bond, indeed the limited run of 24 cars references the company’s success at Le Mans (it has one overall win and three class wins). “Vulcan hints at the freedom of thinking and competitive spirit within Aston Martin now,” Reichman concludes. “It is very much a pointer to our future sports cars and the differences between our DB cars and our out-and-out sports cars.
“You’ll see a greater gap between the gentile, cool and very iconic DB cars and more athletic and purposeful sports car — more like predators or hunters and something very different for Aston”, says Reichman. “The Vulcan effectively has no grille by comparison to current sports cars and no side graphic as the cabin upper is all black. And yet Vulcan is still very much an Aston Martin.”
Aston Martin
Source http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/motoring/62280/aston-martin-vulcan-launch.html
Ben oui je suis forcé par les autres membres du bureau qui m'obligent a rester éveillé pour dégoter des scoops 
