Aston Martin Virage (1988 - 1994) virage

aston martin virage prototype

The Virage, when unveiled at the 1988 Birmingham Motor Show was the first new Aston Martin for 18 years. Styled by the British team of John Heffernan and Ken Greenley, the beat off stiff opposition from others during a competition held by AML to decide on the new design. This 158mph car was in many ways a better and easier car for the company to build yet it was still very heavy with a kerb weight of 1790kg.

This photograph of the third prototype Virage, DP2034/3, taken on the AML stand at the 1988 event. At this time, the surrounds to the headlights were finished in black, something that never featured on the production cars.
virage © Tim Cottingham 2000 On the left is one of the very first of the Virage to be delivered, spotted at the AMOC Spring concours in 2000. On the right, a different Virage, this time taken in the Paddock at Donnington Park during an AMOC meeting during 1994. Silver Virage © Tim Cottingham 1994
virage rear © Tim Cottingham 1993 This rear view shows the rear light clusters which are from the VW Scirocco; headlamps courtesy of the Audi 100. As with many Aston Martins throughout history, certain parts are borrowed from other cars. Whilst some might say that this a bad thing, but without these small but expensive to manufacture parts, there would be no Astons today. Red Virage © Tim Cottingham 1998
virage © Tim Cottingham 2000

These are a pair of the later examples of the Virage and can be identified by the return of the side vents and the fitting of larger 17 inch diameter wheels (see below). Another feature of post 1993 cars was the adoption of walnut veneer surrounding individual instrument dials.

 black virage © Tim Cottingham 1998
32 valve V8 © Tim Cottingham 1994 The V8 engine is retained but now with a four valve per cylinder head developed in association with Callaway Engineering of Connecticut, USA. Even with unleaded fuel, power is more than sufficient with 330bhp @ 5300rpm and torque of 350lb/ft @ 4000rpm. But before production of the Virage ended, AML revised published power and torque down to 310bhp and 340 lb/ft which I suspect was due tighter emission controls being introduced.  

Here are examples of the two standard wheels seen on the Virage. On the left is the first wheel design, a 16inch diameter 5 spoke alloy type. Later cars were then fitted with a similar but 'lighter' looking 17 inch diameter five spoke design - also note the modern interpretation of the traditional side air vent on the blue car. This was a feature of the original design but was lost during the development of the car. Thankfully it returned on later examples of the Virage and was seen right through to the Vantage. A shade over 400 were built with just 54 going to the US (only 14 of these had the rare manual transmission).

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  Page Updated Mittwoch Juli 09, 2008