Aston Martin V12 Zagato Concept Cars Complete Nurburgring Test

The three Aston Martin factory-backed entries in the 39th ADAC Nurburgring 24 Hour race, which also included two new V12 Zagato concept cars (affectionately nicknamed ‘Zig’ and ‘Zag’), have all successfully complete the ultimate endurance test in Germany, observed by some 200,000 spectators.

Taken separately, the number 5 V12 Zagato took 5th place in the SP8 class with sister car, the number 3 V12 Zagato finishing 6th. In the SP10 class, a factory-backed V8 Vantage N24 raced to 5th place.

Aston Martin’s twin V12 Zagato entry marked the next step of the project which began when the car was premiered at the Concorso D’Eleganza at Villa D’Este in May this year, winning the Design award for Concepts and Prototypes. The show car was then transformed into the number 3 race car, nicknamed ‘Zag’ (red livery) while in parallel, a sister car – number 5, nicknamed ‘Zig’ (green livery) was built.

The intention to enter the new V12 Zagatos in this year’s race offered an extension of the company’s philosophy of signing-off new products by entering a car which is as close to the road car as possible and publicly subjecting it to the toughest 24 hour test, by entering a car in prototype form.

“All our cars finished today, and two out of the three customer teams also crossed the line. This includes two brand new cars which we launched only four weeks ago,” said Aston Martin CEO, Dr. Ulrich Bez.

“With a little more luck we could have finished higher up the order, but finishing first wasn’t the goal, we aimed to have the cars running at the end – I am really pleased with the team who did such a great job keeping the cars running throughout,” he added.