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It’s been 50 years since the iconic Concorde took flight for the first time. To commemorate this anniversary Aston Martin will build the DBS Superleggera Concorde Special Edition, the latest in a long list of aviation-inspired Aston special editions.
Aston is making ten of these things, which is half as many as the 20 British/French Concordes which were built. Having a car twice as rare as the fastest commercial jet in history? I suppose there are some who might find value in such trivialities.
Marek Reichman, Executive VP and Chief Creative Officer, Aston Martin:
“It’s only fitting that our great British sports car brand marks the achievement of the incredibly dedicated, talented and ambitious teams of British and French scientists, engineers, designers and aircraft workers who made Concorde, and supersonic air travel, a reality in our skies 50 years ago.
Using the DBS Superleggera as our starting point, and with the support of the talented personalisation experts in the Q by Aston Martin service to draw on, we have been able to subtly and sympathetically enhance and highlight some of the car’s most notable features while preserving the elegance, style and sheer brutish road presence for which the Aston Martin DBS is rightly known.”
The Aston Martin DBS Superleggera is mechanically unchanged, retaining the same 5.2-liter twin-turbo V12 with 715 horsepower. While this makes for a fast car, it certainly won’t be able to match the mach 2.05 speeds that a Concorde could. Shame, that.
It’ll still do 0-60 in 3.4 seconds and run a top speed of 211 mph. That’s respectable for a car, but really slow for a Concorde. For perspective the Aston at flat chat is running about mach 0.275.
A DBS Superleggera Concorde Edition will transport only four human beings. A real-deal Concorde could hold as many as 128 passengers. No contest, really.
Want a real comparison? A Concorde could make it from New York City to London in just 3.5 hours. This thing, assuming it could fly, would take almost 16.5 hours. Sheesh.
The Concorde Special Edition is signified by a set of special milled-aluminum Concorde-shaped side strakes, British Airways-aping stripes, a black carbon fiber roof panel with a Concorde design graphic, unique aircraft identifier numbers, and a bespoke plaque. Inside you’ll see the Concorde logo on the seats, a “Mach Meter” embroidered into the sun visor (oh, that’s bad), a unique headliner printed with a sonic boom graphic, bespoke sill plates, and shift paddles made from the titanium of a Concorde compressor blade.
For the record, I think using pieces of titanium from a real Concorde is the coolest part of this whole exercise. That’s gotta feel really freakin’ cool on your fingertips.
If you want one of these ten cars, you’re probably out of luck because ten of the world’s super rich have already purchased them and chucked them away into a collection somewhere never to be driven. Like the Concorde itself, these Concorde Edition cars have most likely already been retired.
