Frankfurt am Main, 10. August 2012. Even before the first customer cars are delivered, the Aston Martin Vanquish is already exciting German auto fans. The luxury British sport car maker’s new super GT has won this year’s “Design Award” in a reader poll run by German magazine Auto Bild. In the class “Coupés/Convertibles” the Aston Martin Vanquish secured top spot with 21.8% of readers’ votes, placing it well ahead of the 19 German and other international competitors in the field.
Also in the Europe-wide vote, where the readers of the sister publications of Auto Bild took part, the new Vanquish took second place in the same class with only a narrow gap to the winner.
Dr. Ulrich Bez, CEO of Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd, said: “We are extremely proud that the Vanquish has, even before its market entry, done so well in the readers’ vote and has especially captured people’s hearts in the highly competitive German market. This shows how convincing our design language is, and I can already say that the dynamic characteristics of the Vanquish will be just as exciting.”
Aston Martin Design Director Marek Reichman said: “In the search for excellence we have incorporated the successful Aston Martin design DNA into the Vanquish, bringing it to a new evolutionary stage. We are proud that this is acknowledged both by the informed readers of Auto Bild as well as the recognized experts of the automotive industry.”
The impressive response to the Vanquish from Auto Bild readers comes just days after the new Aston Martin super GT was named as winner in the German Design Council’s design competition “Automotive Brand Contest 2012” in the category “Exterior”.
A total of nearly 100,000 readers voted in the “Auto Bild Design Award 2012” choosing their favourite cars from a selection of 136 models in five categories.
The Vanquish becomes the new flagship model of the Aston Martin sports car range. With its comprehensively re-engineered 6.0-litre V12 engine – good for 573 PS at 6,750 rpm – it becomes the most powerful production car in the British luxury manufacturer’s model range. In addition to its performance – 620 Nm at 5,500 rpm torque, acceleration of 0-100km/h in 4.1 seconds and a top speed of 295 km/h – the Vanquish impresses with its breath-taking design, new intelligent control console and noticeably more generous interior space.
The first customer cars will be delivered in Europe towards the end of 2012.