Aston Martin

One of the most exciting new vehicles to be shown at last year’s Villa D’Este Concours was the Aston Martin V12 Zagato, a striking reimagining of the standard V12 Vantage. At the time, it was officially a concept, but the fact that an additional one was built for and competed in the Nürburgring 24 Hours seemed to indicate otherwise. Well, it didn’t take long after that for Aston Martin to come clean and say that it will build and sell a limited number of these Anglo-Italian bruisers.

Now Aston Martin has revealed photos and info on the final production version. And while the exterior styling (rendered in a combination of carbon fiber and hand-fabricated aluminum) is very much a derivative of the initial concept and competition vehicles, there’s considerably more polish inside and out.

In the auto industry's formative years, coachbuilding was a very big deal. Just about every luxury car manufacturer in those days sold its cars as bare chassis with drivetrains and firewalls. Then the buyer of that Duesenberg, Voisin, Rolls-Royce, Hispano-Suiza or whatever would get in touch with a coachbuilder like LeBaron, H.J. Mulliner or Figoni et Falaschi to design, fabricate and install a stylish body on that chassis.

However, when the Great Depression wiped out all but a handful of luxury marques, the traditional coachbuilding industry went the way of the Passenger Pigeon and the Great Biggie size order of fries at Wendy's. A few survived on building one-off custom jobs and concept cars, but most just disappeared or were absorbed by manufacturers who brought their body fabrication in-house. One of the coachbuilders that has managed to remain independent is Zagato. This storied Italian carrozzeria has collaborated with Aston Martin on multiple occasions, including on the topless beauty seen here.