Monday 10th April 2017

Aston Vanquish S Red Arrows Edition

It was more than just a Sunday Service at St Athan over the weekend...

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Remember the Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Spitfire car from last year? Aston Cambridge has again commissioned a special edition car from Aston Martin Q - the Vanquish S Red Arrows Edition.

Yes, the helmets come with the car

Shown to Aston customers at St Athan yesterday, the Red Arrows Edition follows the template used by the Spitfire commission last year: very limited numbers, a raft of unique visual tweaks and a strong RAF theme.

On that latter point, the car is painted Eclat Red - but of course - the Eclat referencing the Red Arrows' motto. There's also a white 'smoke trail' as part of the side strake, Union Jack badges and an "inlaid charge pattern" on the roof, said to mimic the canopy design of a fastjet.

Inside too the Red Arrows and RAF inspiration is clear, with Pinewood green inserts like an old flight suit, seats with 'Martin Baker Ejection Seat' fabric and green webbing seat belts plus build plaques, embroidered logos and, yes, those helmets stowed in the rear seats.

Best hurry if you want one!

In fact, there are a host of extra goodies that come with the Vanquish S Red Arrows Edition as well as the lids. Each of the nine owners will receive "truly bespoke accessories" including a die-cast model of the car and a Hawk plane, a build book and a range of clothing that "could include" racing suits, bespoke embroidered bomber jackets and a Vanquish S luggage set.

Though 10 Red Arrows Editions are being built, just nine customers will be able to buy one as the tenth is being donated to the RAF Benevolent Fund. Appropriately enough it was a nine-aircraft formation that the Red Arrows made famous, so it sort of fits nicely.

A price hasn't been announced for the Vanquish S Red Arrows Edition, though you imagine all of them will fly out of the showroom (sorry). Contact Aston Cambridge for more details!

[Ekona]

Love the Vanquish, but that's a dog's dinner of a colour scheme scheme. That white stripe is awful, and green interior? Nope, not for me.

Good on them for donating a car though!

[Timbo_Mint]

Very British and yet left hand drive?

[Ex Boy Racer]

I have had a few nice cars, including 911's, Ferraris, R8's etc. I am now on my second Aston and the product fits perfectly with what I want from a toy in terms of the experience and the ownership experience.

However, these limited edition things are embarrassing in my opinion. I understand the need to build volume, but surely doing it in this way demeans the brand somewhat?Questionable execution, strange tie-ins, poor aesthetics.

After all, it's not a Ford; it's a classy, world-renowned quality name.

[SWoll]

Ex Boy Racer said:

I have had a few nice cars, including 911's, Ferraris, R8's etc. I am now on my second Aston and the product fits perfectly with what I want from a toy in terms of the experience and the ownership experience.

However, these limited edition things are embarrassing in my opinion. I understand the need to build volume, but surely doing it in this way demeans the brand somewhat?Questionable execution, strange tie-ins, poor aesthetics.

After all, it's not a Ford; it's a classy, world-renowned quality name.

Tiny production number PR exercise that I'm sure will appeal to some buyers as it ties in to something very British and unquestionably cool. Not sure what the issue is personally?

[Yipper]

Special editions need to look especially good. This one looks awful. Rear diffuser looks like something from a nasty 30k Mustang.

[PurpleAki]

Another one?

[Olivera]

Should go down well with those Aston owners that like mangled and contrived 007 number plates

[ukaskew]

Ex Boy Racer said:

However, these limited edition things are embarrassing in my opinion. I understand the need to build volume, but surely doing it in this way demeans the brand somewhat?Questionable execution, strange tie-ins, poor aesthetics.

A dealership has commissioned these via the 'Q' programme, so no different to a customer rocking up and ordering them I guess. Whilst presumably AM had to agree to it, they aren't putting these out as factory limited/special editions.

[Rawwr]

Hilarious.

[jonby]

ukaskew said:

Ex Boy Racer said:

However, these limited edition things are embarrassing in my opinion. I understand the need to build volume, but surely doing it in this way demeans the brand somewhat?Questionable execution, strange tie-ins, poor aesthetics.

A dealership has commissioned these via the 'Q' programme, so no different to a customer rocking up and ordering them I guess. Whilst presumably AM had to agree to it, they aren't putting these out as factory limited/special editions.

Correct. This is the third series put together by Cambridge (the first two being Blades & Spitfire)

They (Cambridge) approach Q and put together a commission, get a price, decide on a production number, order the cars and then find customers for them

The Spitfire series was priced at a level that allowed £40k in total to go to the benevolent fund, so basically, I assume a £5kish per car allowance was made in the margin for the donation

For this series, which involves a 'free car' (it's actually a 10th car that is being donated to the RAF to raffle and keep the proceeds), I imagine it's effectively the 9 customers who are paying for the 10th car as part of the margin, with possibly some kind of contribution from Cambridge via their own margin

Reading the article (not just here but in all the car mags), it appears as though Aston/Q are getting a little more credit than they deserve, especially for the 'free car', which at most, I suspect involves the factory trimming their margin a little

Dealer specced editions happen to one degree or another across many of the car brands, just rarely get much publicity

Oh and the helmets aren't 'stowed in the rear seats' as suggested in the article - the rear seats have been deleted to create special ledges for the helmets - that's about as PH as you can get isn't it ? I guess inspired by the same feature in James Bond's DBS in Casino Royale

Edited by jonby on Monday 10th April 12:46

[FN2TypeR]

Red and green, what a combo

It looks cheap (even though it isn't) and gaudy IMO - too many trinkets, details and bits n' bobs.

[jason61c]

Terrible brand exercise.

Surely they'd be better off linking with an air squad that actually defends the country, not one where you get signed upto a 2-5 year tax payers holiday.

[GranCab]

jason61c said:

Terrible brand exercise.

Surely they'd be better off linking with an air squad that actually defends the country, not one where you get signed upto a 2-5 year tax payers holiday.

Yep ... knock out 10 of these please ...






Then paint them like this ...

[SpeckledJim]

jonby said:

For this series, which involves a 'free car' (it's actually a 10th car that is being donated to the RAF to raffle and keep the proceeds), I imagine it's effectively the 9 customers who are paying for the 10th car as part of the margin, with possibly some kind of contribution from Cambridge via their own margin

Shouldn't think so. If you want to buy 10 Aston Martins, I doubt your price-per-unit is very high.

I bet AM would do something similar to buy 7 get 3 free.

[jonby]

SpeckledJim said:

jonby said:

For this series, which involves a 'free car' (it's actually a 10th car that is being donated to the RAF to raffle and keep the proceeds), I imagine it's effectively the 9 customers who are paying for the 10th car as part of the margin, with possibly some kind of contribution from Cambridge via their own margin

Shouldn't think so. If you want to buy 10 Aston Martins, I doubt your price-per-unit is very high.

I bet AM would do something similar to buy 7 get 3 free.

Obviously your ratios are tongue in cheek but I don't even follow your basic logic

Buying 9/10 cars gets you buying power discount however it happens to be phrased but the fact remains the price of the 10 cars being made will be spread across 9 paying customers in this instance whereas ordinarily, 10 cars would be sold to 10 customers, meaning they could charge less per car

[TaylotS2K]

The current Vanquish is the nicest in the AM range. That colour scheme is awful though.

[David87]

Can't argue with that, to be honest. If I can pick one up for £20 then that'll do.

[AussieFozzy]

"There's also a white 'smoke trail' as part of the side strake"

Give it the actual smoke system the jets use or dont bother at all!

[TheDrBrian]

why does it have so much ground clearance?

[lord trumpton]

TheDrBrian said:

why does it have so much ground clearance?

Maybe its just about to take off?