The build of Aston Martin’s first DB4 GT Zagato Continuation cars is now underway at the company’s heritage division, Aston Martin Works, at its Newport Pagnell, UK, base. The DB4 GT Zagato was a lightweight version of the short-wheelbase DB4 GT, a collaboration between Aston Martin and renowned Italian coachbuilder Zagato. Just 19 were built, designed to compete against the might of Ferrari in the 1960s World Sportscar Championship.
Now Aston Martin is going to build 19 new DB4 GT Zagato Continuation cars using 1960s David Brown-era old world craftsmanship combined with “the sympathetic application of modern engineering advancements and performance
enhancements”. For example, a digital body buck has been created to allow Aston Martin engineers to examine minute details of the design but the hand-finished body panels will be hand-worked from flat sheets of 1.2mm thick aluminium using traditional coachbuilding techniques. The cars will be powered by a version of the original Tadek Marek-designed straight-six cylinder engine with two spark plugs per cylinder, producing around 380bhp and driving the rear wheels via a four-speed manual transmission and limited-slip differential.
The body of the first car has now been completed, created in a glass-fronted workshop at Aston Martin Works, which was the site of the Aston Martin factory until production relocated to Gaydon in 2007. Up to that point 13,000 cars had been built at Newport Pagnell. In 2017, production (albeit on a much lower scale) returned there with the launch of the DB4 GT Continuation. With that model now sold out, the Zagato Continuations will take up the production facilities, to be followed in 2020 by DB5 “Goldfinger” Continuations.
The DB4 GT Zagato Continuations will be sold paired with the new DBS GT Zagato as “The DBZ Century Collection”, priced at £6m plus taxes. First deliveries to customers will start in the third quarter of 2019 for the DB4 GT Zagato Continuation and the end of 2020 for the DBS GT Zagato.
Images courtesy of Aston Martin Lagonda
