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I came across a good Vantage build on this site so thought I would mirror my Pistonheads one here as well:
Ever since I started driving I have wanted to design and build my own car.. This set me on a path through university and on to engineering which quickly saw me working in the engineering teams at Aston Martin, then Jaguar Land Rover, a bunch of design houses in and around Coventry and Birmingham all the while I was aiming to somehow get the tools around me to later allow me to use the same processes as the OEMs to design and build my own creation.
through university I was naively wanting to do a ground up build, chassis, the lot. but, sensible head on after a little experience in the industry I knew this would be an unrealistic proposition to do single handedly and ultimately result in areas being flawed. So having worked at Astons on the V8 vantage I settled on this being a great base for a car.
I have always admired Aston Martins from a young age and still remember being late for a saturday job once as I saw the an old Vantage in a carpark and just waited for the owner to come back so I could hear it fire up. That was the era of Aston Martins being for gentlemen car enthusiasts 'who knew' and the models didnt really shout look at me but could punch you in the teeth, a bouncer in a Savile Row suit I think was the analogy.
I think the last true Aston that did this was the Callum Vanquish, all stance and proportion with no nonsense scoops , ducts and wings etc.. with the exception of the DB9 and V8 vantage I feel the most recent Astons are too in your face, Also I feel nearly all the models have promissed and 11 but often delivered an 8 with a handful of missed opportunities. So there has always been a slight frustration with them (like why is the engine bay in a V8 vantage a display of pipes and mess!? Grrr.
It was during my time on the v8 vantage I doodled over a greyed out print of the the production car, my inspiration was the DBR1.. an open topped roadster. I never threw the sketch out and 20years on I was now in a position to scratch that itch. this is the original sketch idea:
Having done some 3d sketch models and renderings I didn't feel it was quite the direction I now wanted to go in, I did not want this to be a Aston Martin evolution but rather more my own thing, my own design. The Vantage did however still offer all the ingredients I needed and this is were it all starts...
It was important that end result be of a very high standard and so an excellent base car was purchased. A low milage, full history 2007 V8 was bought.
I drove this for a short while to experience the car warts and all. My summary, great experience, good noise, reverse gear is a ridiculous ratio, too slow, power to high in the rev range, great on empty A and B roads, terrifying on not empty B roads, ruts one side, bin lorry coming at you with poor visibility and very little to understand where the extremes of the car are other than 'using the force'! it often made for an unrelaxing experience... promises an 11, delivers an 8.
Next step was to start the process and the first stage was to document the car as is so this was 3d scanned so I always had benchmark data to refer to and I could start the design properly in CAD. 3d scan of the exterior:
With the design work no started on the CAD i quickly needed more information of the underlaying structure and that meant one thing...... its time to grow a pair, get the saw out and....
If your squeamish you may want to look away now...
I managed to sell the entire front end and wheels to an unlucky fellow who had stuffed the front of his but other than that the parts were almost impossible to sell, it seems no one really messes about with Astons.. (meanwhile a mate of mine sold most of a 911 in a afternoon!) I was however not passed the point of no return as I could, in theory, buy all the bits I sold and get it back on the road. If this was going to happen, pushing myself out of my comfort zone was needed.
(reaches for reciprocating saw..)
a cut straight through the roof ought to do it.
...a few moments later...
Fun thing is, the body was picked off (more than a few moments were taken!) but the car is mechanically and electrically untouched so this still runs and drives in this state. Although it does think I have all the doors open and some headlamp bulbs out.
If you know about the Vantages construction you may know its a bonded Aluminium tub in the same process as the Lotus Elise pioneered. Because of this they are un naturally stiff. when I cut the roof it was on 4 axle stands with the slightly uneven floor is was actually only really on 3 of them. Cut through the roof and there was a slight 'dong' noise as the tension of the panel was release and that's all. Inserting the saw blade back into the cut and it was exactly the same thickness of the blade on both sides and still on the same 3 axle stands - nothing even moved!
This is going to be a great build. I was also surprised you decided to use a coupe and not a convertible if you were planning on cutting the roof off, but I guess I learned something new today that the Vantage was built on a tub
As the car was slowly getting more and more naked , I took the opportunity to scan as much as I could so I had as much information available to call on should i need it down the line.
I managed to find an extra engine on Ebay so bought this as it was out the car and I could scan it and then align this back to the fitted condition and giving me more info on the engine package, this would be important when I come to style the new body over it to ensure I keep clearances etc.
Here is the engine bay scans,
And these scans aligned to the exterior scan
I also have a spare engine so by taking a scan of this and then aligning this to the engine in the engine bay scans I can see the full engine package as it sits in the vehicle...
Engine scan:
Aligned to 'fitted' condition:
Below are some images in different view and you can see how the engine fits in the vehicle:
Also in the image above I have cut a section through 'Y zero' (X runs in the direction of the length of the vehicle, Y direction is across the vehicle ie left to right and Z direction is pointing up) Y=zero is a centerline section.
Other sections will be cut at required positions which will allow me to determine Aston Martins' design clearances to the A surface (the exterior surfaces) and chassis etc and any freedom in the package to position the new body design over.
For this project I will be working in a slightly different workflow than normal as I will start the body design now and evolve it over time as the car is dismantled and more of the structure of the car can be scanned/measured etc so im not surrounded by dismantled parts!
Below are some images of laying out the design in a little more detail but still very much a sketch model over the exterior scan.
At this stage I was still going very much by my original sketch and whe the design started to feel a bit too much like a modern take on an Aston and likely be seen as such and with all the work i will have to put in wanted it to come across as MY design so I was veering back to the drawing board..
far to 'copy /classic'... (cringe)
Case and point sticking the above image in google image search and look....
I started to sketch again and it was these sketches where there were areas I really liked.
some areas were awful but others really had something, I liked the front alot, the bold side graphic really interested me and the back needed work! it was time to get back into 3d.
Lots and Lots of time was burnt here.. trying different ideas, not liking stuff, having a break, having a paddy, and drawing again
But it was this image where I really thought I was on the right track...
From my time working in the Design studio at Jaguar Landrover I knew that the only real way to know if something it going to look good is to see it in the flesh... and at full scale. Viewing car designs in CAD is very easy to make an exciting dramatic image... big wheels, low viewing angle and lots of perspective and milk float would look cool.
Maybe one day we'll have an AI designer, 3D printer, and robot assembler, so you can just free-form what you want and it just gets built. Eliminate mass production except for some components.
