The Aston Martin Virage was the English automaker’s answer to their squared off super cars from the 1980s. The new Virage has squared off horizontal headlights with a truly muscular stance borrowed from the 1990 to 2000 models. The 2+2 started out life powered by a 5.3 Liter V8 making 330 HP and 350 lb-ft of torque. Aston also offered a Virage Volante convertible equipped with a four speed Torqueflite automatic transmission with overdrive and made over 350 HP. There was also a high output Vantage Virage powered by a twin supercharged variant of the V8 that made 550 HP and 555 lb-ft of torque. This took the Virage Vantage from 0 to 60 MPH in 4.2 seconds and all the way up to a top speed of 200 MPH. A special edition V600 model was the top of the line Virage that produced 600 HP.
Last Sunday, the second episode of Top Gear’s 17th season aired and like most of the shows these days, we were treated to some hilarious segments, a rather pointedly pointless car review, some canned and scripted studio jokes, and - for once - a surprisingly fast lap on the Kia Cee’d. Par for the course for Top Gear.
In this episode, James May will tell you things about the Aston Martin Virage that you already probably know. This is then followed by a highly-entertaining hot hatch triple threat madness along the streets of Italy that included finding a dog, an ice cube, and branch from a cedar tree.
Comedian Russ Noble also stopped by for a little chat with Jeremy - an entertaining interview by our measure - after which the former strapped on his helmet for his hot lap on board the show’s Reasonably Priced Car.
The show concludes with a sort of dream of dreams, at least as far as Jeremy Clarkson was concerned: three laps around the Monaco Grand Prix. It probably didn’t matter that the cars they were driving were the same three hot hatches they drove in Italy. At the end of the day - Clarkson especially - had a blast to finally drive their way around Monaco’s world famous street circuit.
The days before the 17th season of Top Gear are slowly ticking away and BBC is lessening our pain with yet another trailer for the highly anticipated car show. The second trailer is loaded with more images for the upcoming season and also confirms the season opener date: Sunday, June 26th.
Built between 1989 and 2000, the Aston Martin Virage was one of the most powerful sports cars of the moment. It was a model built as a replacement for Aston Martin’s old V8 line-up, and now the name returns once again as a sports car that combines performance with luxury, comfort, and refinement. The model is now on sale in 41 countries, in both coupe and Volante versions.
The new Virage is placed between the DBS and the DB9 and is powered by a 6.0 liter V12 engine that produces 490 HP and 570 Nm (420 lb. Ft) of torque.
Aston Martin CEO, Dr Ulrich Bez said: "100 years of automotive history has demonstrated that evolution delivers the best solutions in time. So it is with Virage; it is the next level of evolution in our VH architecture strategy and it does everything with the perfection that you would expect today. It is the perfect balance of opposites."
UPDATE 05/16/11: Aston Martin has released the official configurator for the new Virage model at their website. All you need to do is put your creative hats on, hop on over to the Aston website, and start working!
Hit the jump to read more about the 2012 Aston Martin Virage.
The Geneva Motor Show is one of the biggest shows of the year and the 2011 event certainly did not disappoint. With over 70 cars lined up and ready to take our breaths away, choosing our favorites between them all was not an easy task.
Sure, there were some easy choices, like the brand spanking new Lamborghini Aventador or the Jaguar XKR-S, or brilliant tuning projects like the ABT R8 GT S. Then there was the job of tossing out the not-so-brilliant vehicles like the Mitsubishi Global Small or the rather useless Rinspeed Bamboo. The 2011 Geneva Motor Show brought out cars from one side of the spectrum to the other, and rifling through them took some time. Some may not agree with our choices and that’s okay. However, everyone can appreciate a beautiful or highly efficient car when they see one, and we’ve gathered some exceptional specimens to share.
Hit the jump to check out our choices for the Best of the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.
The Virage was Aston Martin’s replacement for the decades-old V8 models. Introduced at the Birmingham Motor Show in 1988, it was joined by the high-performance Vantage in 1993, and the name of the standard car was changed to V8 in 1996.
