The drop-dead new Aston Martin Vanqish Zagato is made of dreams. Which is just as well because it’s a concept.
BMW did have the beautiful Italian backdrop of Lake Como to itself at the 2016 Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. Their 2002 Hommage, stunning though it is, had to share an audience with Aston Martin’s lovely Vanquish Zagato Concept.
The newest Zagato-fettled Aston follows on from a long line of special editions that have had their exteriors reshaped by famed Milanese coachbuilding company Zagato. Most recently, the V12 Vantage got Italian treatment in 2011 with similar knee-buckling results. The difference being that while there are roadgoing examples of those, this Vanquish Zagato isn’t up for sale – at least not yet.
As it were with their previous collaborations, the car’s design was refined between the Aston Martin Design team and the Zagato designers in Italy. What it yielded is a body consisting entirely of carbon fibre with the conscious elimination of split lines to emphasise its use of large one-piece panels.
The most noticeable differences come from the front fog circular lamps and tail lamps that are now circular as well, incorporating the same ‘bladed’ LEDs that was first used by Aston Martin in their track-only Vulcan supercar.
The Vanquish Zagato, interestingly, gains some styling cues that makes it looks more like the newer DB11. Perhaps, then, this proves Aston Martin took a fair bit of inspiration from Zagato when it came to finalising the car’s production design.
The usual Zagato styling staples make a return here too, with the roofline being tapered more finely to the rear tip of the car much like the V12 Zagato and the double-bubble roof.
Under the bonnet lies an uprated 6.0-litre naturally-aspirated V12 engine, producing 447kW over the standard 421kW. On the inside, the cabin has been lavished plenty of exposed carbon fibre, particularly along the centre stack, as well as as many of Zagato’s stylised ‘Z’ logos that you can shake a stick at.
There’s really no reason we can see for the Vanquish Zagato to remain in limbo as a concept for long, especially given how evocative of an object it is and how well received pretty much every previous Zagato edition was. Naturally, they will be only be made in very small numbers and attached to a very big price tag.
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