Aston Martin announces stunning drop-top Zagato coupe

23 August, 2016

Stunning is a word I try not to use often. It’s not that manly, but sometimes it’s the only word to describe vehicles as beautiful as the Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato coupe. The V12 engine is a stunning piece of machinery, too, with 592hp, a beautiful noise, and the capability to propel the luxury coupe to 100kph in only 3.7 seconds. 

Aston Martin has confirmed this weekend that the Zagato will be accompanied in the showroom by a topless friend named Volante. We’re not complaining either, the Zagato Volante coupe is a thing of pure beauty. It will, however, only be sold in limited numbers, stopping at 99 vehicles. 

Alongside the topless roof line, the convertible will receive touches that the hardtop will not. The interior will feature ‘Z’ embossing on the headrests and doors, and a ‘Z’ quilt pattern will be a standard feature on both the doors and seats. On the outside of the Volante you’ll see bladed LED technology as seen on the Vulcan supercar, and lower carbon-fibre sills. 

This is one Aston that, in years to come, will become a stout future classic. Buy one now folks, before the pricing gets out of control. Well, if you have the coin that is! 

Images: Aston Martin

A second dose of Dash

When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018 it was duly taken along for entry certification. Vehicle Inspection NZ (VINZ) found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways.
We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington and I pored over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work.

Lunch with… Jim Palmer

In the 1960s, Hamilton’s Jim Palmer won the prestigious ‘Gold Star’ four times and was the first resident New Zealander home in the New Zealand Grand Prix on five consecutive occasions. He shared the podium with Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, and Chris Amon. The extent of his domination of the open-wheeler scene in New Zealand will probably never be matched or exceeded. Yet he’s always been modest about his achievements.