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The Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, often shortened to Vanquish, was designed by Ian Callum, and is a grand tourer manufactured by Aston Martin. From its 2001 introduction to its cancellation, it was Aston Martin's flagship vehicle. Its rise to recognition by the wider public came after being featured as the official James Bond car in Die Another Day, the twentieth James Bond film.
It was discontinued after the 2007 model year. The Aston Martin DBS V12 will temporarily replace it atop Aston's lineup pending the 2010 introduction of a new, full-fledged replacement.
The Vanquish is powered by a 5.9 L (5935 cc) 48-valve 60° V12 engine, which produces 343 kW (460 hp) and 542 N·m (400 ft·lbf) of torque. It is controlled by a fly-by-wire throttle and a 6 speed clutchless sequential manual transmission. The V12 Vanquish S upped the power to 388 kW (520 hp) and 577 N·m (426 ft·lbf). The V12 engine in the Vanquish was designed at Ford Research in the USA. Cosworth Technologies was originally contracted to manufacture the engine, but had no involvement with the design. Previous articles which correctly recount this engine's development have appeared in Automotive Industries magazine.
The Vanquish's V12 engine shares some components and design elements with the 3.0 L Duratec 30 V6. It even shares the same bore and stroke dimensions. For this reason, many people incorrectly dismiss the Aston Martin V12 as merely "two Duratecs linked together." While it is correct that the AM V12 shares components with the 'Duratec' engine design, it is not possible to simply put two V6's together to make a V12. The bank offset for a V12 is equal to one rod bearing width, whereas the bank offset for a 60-degree V6 is significantly longer than one rod bearing width, thus it is necessary to design a V12 as a totally new engine.
The standard Vanquish model had 355 mm (14 in) drilled and ventilated disc brakes with ABS, with electronic brake distribution, while the Vanquish S featured larger 378 mm (15 in) front and 330 mm (13 in) rear rotors. It featured 19-inch wheels.
As part of its improvements, the Vanquish S featured a slightly improved coefficient of drag of 0.32. Its front and rear track were 1524 mm (60 in) and 1529 mm (60 in), respectively. Wikipedia
Performance
* Power: 388 kW (520 hp) at 7000 rpm
* 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph): 4.114 s
* Top Speed: 200 mph (322 km/h) |
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