New Brit sports car firm
PH talks to the man behind new venture David Brown Automotive
Now the question is: what is that donor car? He won't tell us before it's revealed at the end of March, so let's a play a game of guess the motor. He told us this much: it's a British, rear-wheel-drive coupe (with a convertible planned for later) powered by a V8. Over to you.
His inspiration partly came from his ownership of an Aston DB5, which he loves but "got fed up with things going wrong on it".
Details are scarce but expect a retro look
Brown's is a similar business model to the one employed by millionaire-chasing British SUV maker Eterniti which based its creation around a Porsche Cayenne. The two are connected in that former Land Rover designer Alan Mobberley (creator of the original Discovery) was involved in styling both of them.
This is Brown's first dabble in automotive but he's by all accounts a pretty deft businessmen with engineering in his blood. He sold one of his companies, making articulated dump trucks, to Caterpillar 15 years ago, for example.
He says the donor car will be unrecognisable. With all the panels swapped out for bepoke aluminium versions, it'll resemble a "homage" to 60s classics from Ferrari, Aston, Maserati among others. Only those with an eye for ID'ing cars from chassis measurements will twig, he says (our guess is the Jaguar XK, by the way).
The interior is removed to make way for an British sourced mix of veneers, saddle leather and bespoke stainless steel switchgear. The latter have tiny holes to emit light to let you know what they control and whether they're on or off. He says the effect is classy, and far from bling. He tells us this by way of avoiding the question 'how much?', which is also under wraps.
The company doing all the initial preparation is Coventry-based design and engineering firm Envisage Group, which has done work for Jaguar on the F-type. Brown hopes they will produce the car too, although that hasn't been finalised.
The V8 will be tweaked and the aerodynamics sorted to ensure the new paneling hasn't created any buttock-clenching lift issues, but otherwise the donor car dynamics will remain.
The first cars he reckons will be delivered by autumn. We wish him all the luck, as we do to anyone prepared to put in the effort and risk a large amount of cash to improve the richness of Britain's automotive landscape.
Always though the idea of a modernised classic was a good one - yet a nice market.
Kind of like the Eagle E types.
This isn't a modernised classic (which would be something like a Vicarage Jaguar Mk2) this is a new phenomena surely, a classicised modern...
Next thing you know Tony Fernandes will change his name to "Colin Chapman" and expand Caterham's automotive activities accordingly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferruccio_Lamborghini...
Jag
Aston
Morgan
Bristol
RR/Bentley
I thought your post was about this David Brown chap criticising his Aston?
Ferrucio Lamborghini famously went into making cars, so the legend goes, because he got fed up with the failings of the cars he got from Ferrari, and Enzo's attitude to their failings.
That paragraph was an interesting read as it also says Ferrucio Lamborghini also realised he could use some of his tractor components in his road cars, making more money from their use in highly priced road cars than he could on his tractors. Wikipedia also says Lamborghini also built oil burning heaters, I was only aware of the tractors.
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