Various things of no importance.

[Mr.Tremlini]

Comments in threads "F1 Safety and Medical Cars" & "Aston Martin Launch new F1 car" and maybe others recently have lead me to post this blurb separately, so that it can disappear quietly down the threads and never be seen again, but at least I can have a rant.

The F1 launch... what a sad performance that was from a classy (perception) company like Aston Martin. Talking totem poles evoking as much emotion as the wood from which they were carved does little to stir passion or enthusiasm. The only person that had any animation and spontaneity about them was Vettel, everyone else way stilted and awkward. The car looked good. I felt sorry for Gemma for getting roped into it.
I really don`t know what they were thinking.
How did some marketing, creative and PR people come up with this concept, and sell it? Or was it dictated as a requirement from the top? Whatever, it was an embarrassment of richness failing to hit the mark, even once. The vernacular or "illegible awful diction and zero gravitas or vocal timbre" (thanks Dewi) of the video presentation was also appalling. Who consults these people??
I will support this team in F1, as I am a champion and defender of Aston Martin (the cars, the history, the power, beauty, sou... sorry) & I enjoy F1, I watch it with my young son, but really, would it be that hard to come up with a presentation and concept that was not like a boardroom PowerPoint presentation?
Having Mr JWW preside over a Maserati launch event seemed pretty naff, until this came along...

Personal opinion and all that, but both of the 4.0L Vantage grill options, "Hunter" or "Retro-mod" have, it seems, generally failed to hit the mark. Never has the nose of anything, except maybe Barbara Streisand or Pinocchio, provoked so much discussion. To my eyes, Hunter is still better than the new take on the traditional, which I find too pouty and even wider than the other visually, due to the lesser height, exacerbated if with black vanes, but in this age of exaggerated selfies and Botox, maybe it`s the new norm? The 5 vanes also irks me, the gaps are too wide. Much has been thrown around in the past, but regardless I will resurrect some "renders" that were posted a year or more ago, that all look better and more resolved to me, than either of the factory options. Yes, I know renders are not considering various factors of cost, design, airflow etc etc, but really, would it be that hard or technically & financially impossible to offer a vane option in the Hunter? Or a smoother, more traditional and graceful nose?



The wings logo... like there`s nothing else to worry about, but yeah, ok, they`ve given it a tweak (stamp your mark on the brand and all that...) 99.99999% of the population will not see the difference. The 00001% that do will have an opinion. It`s been happening to AM forever, and this is the latest iteration, and yes it might cost a quid or two to update the stationary etc, but is this just the F1 logo? Will it appear on the cars, the badges? Will the signs on the dealerships all need replacing? As has been said, it`s all so confusing and potentially unnecessary... but ours is not to wonder why...

[LTP]

As far as the reshaped nose goes, I’m going to guess that they were limited by making the mod with minimum tooling and re-homologation requirements, and they seem to have kept it to a new nose cone and grille. This means the surface above the “crease” running unto the headlights has to remain unchanged (believe me, you don’t want to reshape headlights or sheet metal unless you really have to), as does the contact line made by the projecting black piece at the sides of the old “hunter” nose, otherwise you could be into exterior projection and lower leg pedestrian protection re-homologation so this explains the slightly unfortunate (to my eye) new crease and hollow as they pulled the painted surface out to the line of the old grille sides (if you can follow that written description of a 3D surface change) which still leaves the “fish mouth” appearance. I don’t know whether the whole grille area is required to admit the amount of cooling air required to manage the temperature of engine, brakes, HVAC and the hot-V turbos, but this could also affect the ability of AML make the grille aperture smaller, as the only way to avoid revalidation of the entire cooling system is to keep the aperture shape and position pretty much unchanged.

Is it a missed opportunity? Maybe, but I hope my explanation above gives an idea of the potential constraints the engineering and design teams may have faced. This change would not have been planned, so the design, engineering and tooling would have been additional to the original budget and resources pulled off other programmes. Spending more may not have been possible, especially under the current business constraints. At the end of the day, the problem is the original design concept, which has required this “sticking-plaster” to try to improve it and re-styling the entire front would constitute a fairly major facelift with associated costs and timing. It’s not as simple as a bit of Photoshop.

Vanes into the “hunter”? Yes, probably. But that would be a bit like putting lipstick on a pig, at least in my opinion. The vanes and the projecting black surround just visually jar, as your Photoshop shows. The five vanes chosen may leave the the equivalent open area to the original mesh, as each vane is a solid obstruction to the airflow.

Edited by LTP on Saturday 6th March 18:37

[Jon39]

The only other F1 car launch I watched, was Alfa Romeo.
Would you give better marks for that presentation Dean?

[Mr.Tremlini]

I`ve no idea Jon, I never watched any others, I`m not that invested. I only watched the AM launch as they sent me an email regarding it. I am usually content just seeing photos of the new liveries.