Aston Marting V12 Zagato Getting Ready to Rumble at the Nurburgring

The stunning Aston Martin V12 Zagato endurance race car concept will hit the Nurburgring track this weekend for final preparations ahead of the 24-hour race hosted at the famous German circuit at the end of this month.

Two examples of the V12 Zagato endurance race car which won the Concorso d’Eleganza Design Award for Concept Cars and Prototypes at its first public appearance at the Villa D’Este Concours last month, will be competing in the 51st ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen VLN5 four-hour race on Saturday.

This weekend will be used to refine race setup and allow further driver familiarisation with the new cars on the gruelling 25.378km circuit.

“In terms of our other runners, the V12 Vantage was very unfortunate to be caught up in an incident on the first lap but managed to limp to the pits where the team heroically made the necessary repairs to get it

running and back in the race. Today’s major highlight though proved our V8 Vantage with Darren (Turner) and Jurgen (Stumpf) who drove superbly to a second in class finish,” said Aston Martin’s Head of Motorsport, David King.

Aston Martin Chief Executive, Dr Ulrich Bez will lead the driver team joined by the company’s Nurburgring Test Centre Director, Wolfgang Schuhbauer plus experienced amateur racer Peter Cate in the first of the two V12 Zagato’s. The sister car will be driven by One-77 Chief Engineer Chris Porritt, experienced sports car driver Oliver Mathai and automotive journalist Richard Meaden.

The V12 Zagato was created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the DB4GT Zagato. Since then Zagato and Aston Martin have collaborated together on several projects such as the V8 Vantage Zagato and DB7 Zagato. “The partnership takes inspiration from the past to create a modern interpretation based on Aston Martin’s ultimate performance interpretation of the Vantage range: the V12 Vantage,” Aston says.