INCOMING INVENTORY....--Rolls Royce Royal Blue over Parchment hides
piped dark blue and Dark blue carpeting, 5,340cc DOHC Twin
Supercharged V8 producing 550bhp at 6,500rpm, 6-speed manual, One
of 239 V550?s produced and One of approximately 70 Left Hand
examples, Extremely rare. A whole four years was to pass
between the introduction of the Virage model designed by John
Greenley and John Heffernan and the high performance Vantage. It
was John Heffernan who continued on to create the much improved
V550 Vantage, in his own admission stating that he was never quite
happy with the original Virage styling. Thus, the V550
Vantage took shape. It was quite a bit different from the
antiquated Virage with only the roof and the doors being carried
over from the Virage and its original
styling. Changes to the Virage based body may be
extensive, but that's nothing compared to the engine. The original
5.3 liter V8 now housed twin superchargers and thus the engine now
produced 550bhp and 550 lb.ft of torque. This power plant was at
the time, the most powerful production powerplant in the world. The
braking system utilized massive 362 mm diameter ventilated discs
with four piston AP Racing calipers, the largest brakes fitted to
any road car and certainly enough stopping power for this 550bhp
Aston. The power propelled the V8 Vantage to 0-60 mph in 4.6
seconds with an official AMLs top speed of 186 mph, although a
figure of almost 200mph was recorded in testing. 'Brutal'
was a word used more than once to describe the fastest Aston Martin
ever on its introduction in 1993, but as the Vantage had no less
than 550bhp available to propel its two tons, the choice can only
be judged as a fair comment. In its day, it was the
fastest Aston Martin road car ever. This interior was sumptuous but
functional as always as befitting any Aston Martin
motorcar. A real Aston Martin, big, very beautiful, very
fast, a very expensive GT when. It has so much appeal and
purpose behind it that it is more an experience than mere
transport.By February 1998, production had topped the 200 mark
during five years of production, and when production ended, a mere
239 'standard' examples had been produced (1/3rd of which were LHD)
making this an exceptionally rare and exclusive Aston. Once
production of the V8 Vantage ended in late 2000, the days of hand
built-coachbuilt Astons were truly over for good. This
Left Hand Drive V550 Vantage was first delivered new to the Belgian
market then registered in the UK on 1st August 2003 and MoT'ed in
2005 at 10,127 km. Sold through marque specialist Desmond Smail in
May 2008, at which time it was stated that it had been owned by
'King Fahd Bin Abdula Aziz' (sic) presumed to be HRH King Fahd bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia. The recorded mileage was given
as 10,134. The km Speedometer was swapped out for a MPH unit
(original accompanies car) and currently reads 1,352 miles. Most
recent owner purchased car in 2021, had it fully serviced (receipt
on file) back at Desmond Smail and imported car into the United
States where it has been sparingly used and enjoyed in beautiful
sunny Florida. This is an opportunity to purchase a rare
V550 Vantage with extremely low mileage from new and which was the
end of a truly bespoke hand-built Aston Martin Newport Pagnell
coach-built era.
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