1977 ASTON MARTIN V8 Vantage bolt on Flip TailV8
Vantage V8/11720/RCA V Finished in Mandarin Yellow. UK Reg VNK 345S. Swiss Reg ZH 267 269. S.A. Reg SMD 007
This car was on display in 1977 with two other Mandarin Yellow Astons, at the Aston Martin showrooms in Sloan Street London. It had around 140 miles on the clock having been driven from the Northamptonshire factory, to the Aston showroom in Kensington.
Mr Evans a banker from Switzerland came into the showroom to ask AML if they could sell him a new V8 Vantage, these cars at that point in time being the fastest four-seater car ever built. He was told they don’t even meet UK emissions or noise regulations and as far as a left-hand drive version was concerned that was certainly not going to be considered.
Knowing the Swiss emission regulations for new cars were more restrictive than those in the UK, the banker pointed out that it was currently UK registered and was in actual fact a demonstration vehicle, despite restrictive duties on vehicles into Switzerland similar to Australia! It was however a second-hand vehicle, which could be imported if the duties and taxes were paid, also they did not have to comply with new vehicle emission regulations, allowing the virtually new V8 Vantage into Switzerland as a second-hand tax paid vehicle. He paid a deposit ordered a kilometre speedo to be fitted plus a centre armrest and said he would pick it up the following month.
Mr Evans picked up the Vantage and drove it back to Switzerland, it was kept in a heated garage at his home in Zurich, there it was used for quick trips in Europe and the UK until around 2000, when he gave it to his nephew who lived in the UK. His nephew had a few little jobs done and a full service at a cost of around £14,000.00, thinking this was not going to work out well as a family car in London. He approached Richard Stuart Williams, an Aston specialist in Cobham near London to sell it.
Mike Piddock an old school friend of Richard’s was in the UK at the time for family reasons and also wanted to look for an Aston to bring back to his home in Perth Western Australia. Richard called Mike and said he had something very special coming into his business (R S Williams) he explained to Mike that is was rare and was sure it would interest him. Mike bought the car and I assisted with its importation into Perth. Unfortunately, after returning to Perth Mike sadly passed away before he was able to register or drive the car.
I had been a long-time friend of the family and had kept an eye on the car for around ten years until Mike’s widow Michele decided it was time to sell. I had tried to register the car for their son Gregg but when inspected the examiner found the usual drip of oil on the gearbox sump plug and said no, it needs a gearbox rebuild! That was enough for Gregg and it went back into the garage, until they were ready to part with this rare Aston.
How did these 16 V8 Vantages come about in the first place? In the mid-seventies the V8 Aston was feeling the effects of global emission controls around the world and subsequently performance was affected, in fact the early DBS V8 Astons were quite a bit quicker than the 1974 carburetor engine cars, despite a much-improved exhaust system and 4 x 42 mm twin choke Webber’s feeding the quad cam V8.
The injected DBS V8 that arrived on the scene in 1969 could accelerate to 100 MPH then stop in 18 seconds which was an impressive figure in 1969 for a two-ton car (and that’s proper imperial tons) they built four to five cars a week in 1970 with the new production V8 engine. The Bosch mechanical fuel injection system installed on the engine was tricky to set up and got a bad reputation. When understood they are quite reliable. The accuracy of its fuel metering compared with electronic fuel injection was the main issue. The basic theory seemed to be put lots of fuel in and ignite it! Incidentally all my injected cars ran well but always rich! However, hours were spent setting them up. I believe it was Aston’s installation of the system that let it down plus its fuel metering settings. I have fitted electronic fuel injection on one of these the cars and with the standard highly tuned injected cam profiles it was very fast.
The name “Vantage” had always been associated with a high-performance version of a particular model, like AMG is for Mercedes and M Sport is for BMW. The first DBS’s (1968-69) were sold with the 4ltr 6-cylinder engines, this was offered with the Vantage upgrade, with triple Webber’s and modified cams, followed in 1972 by a run out model named for the first time AM Vantage.
An Aston dealer in Staffordshire by the name of Robin Hamilton thought he could tune one of these new Quad cam V8 Aston engines and get considerably more power out of it due to its design. Hamilton was an engineer trained at Rolls Royce and had made the bold decision to race an Aston V8 at LeMans. He was convinced he could make the engine powerful enough to be competitive at the 24-hour race, this was a grand idea from a reasonably small Aston specialist in the midlands.
The car that he used as a base was actually a 1969 DBS V8. However, it was heavily modified to look like the later V8’s, then modified a bit more. Eventually it turned into one of the most developed V8 Aston in the world and finished well placed at LeMans. In its highest tuned form, the engine developed 800 BHP.
The car went to LeMans in 1977 in 6.0 litre form. Gone was the DBS/V8/100038/RC chassis number, replaced by V8 RHAM/1 (Robin Hamilton Aston Martin 1) producing 520 BHP, the car finished 17th place overall clocking 188 MPH most laps on the Mulsanne straight and a very creditable 3rd place in the GTP class, not bad for an 8 year old car.
Down in Newport Pagnell the Aston factory was getting back on its feet after yet another ownership change. The company was now known as Aston Martin Lagonda 1975 Ltd. The new owners a group of English and Canadian business men being, Peter Sprags, Denis Flather, Allen Curtis and George Minden. The directors were somewhat curious about one of their smaller dealers thinking of heading off to LeMans with a modified DBS V8. Would he actually finish and if so how far from last place would he be, in this modified Aston Grand Tourer!
During the development of RHAM/1 the new management of Aston Martin had taken an interest in the car’s development, they took particular notice of the aero dynamic tests at MIRA. Saying (we should make some LeMans replica’s) and that was the catalyst for the 1977 flip tail Vantage.
Robin Hamilton went on developing the car and along the way took out the world Caravan towing speed record at 125 MPH, which brings a new meaning to (lets have a quick holiday!)
The flip tail Vantages built at Newport Pagnell were certainly not going to meet emission or noise regulations. The way to solve that was to register a production manual V8, then take it to the development section of AML where it would be stripped and rebuilt with higher compression pistons and 4 of the biggest Webbers made (48mm,) modified heads and hotter cams. In fact, the DBS V8 exhaust cams became the Vantages inlet cams and so on.
The aerodynamics that Robin Hamilton had developed were made a bit less radical and used for testing. One of the main issues was that there was far too much air going into the radiator aperture, like trying to push a bucket upside down into water just too much pressure. Aston’s development team said just block it off and see if it helps. It certainly did and the other interesting thing was there was still enough air going through under the bumper to keep the engine cool, in part assisted by the high side vents that let the air flow freely through the engine bay. This blanked off grill and the deep air dam became the main visual feature of the V8 Vantage. If you had one come up behind you on an English motorway it was a sign to move out of the way.
After the production of the 16 Bolt on cars were made, another 21 were built, these did not have the high compression pistons but everything else done mechanically. However, these cars were known as the welded flip tail Vantages as all the alloy ad-on’s were welded on as part of the body. In doing so in my opinion they spoiled the functional look of the original cars. It did not look as the first one’s did a V8 Vantage (a hotted up V8 Aston) The well-known phrase form follows function comes to mind and that is what they were, a very functional fast road car with no compromises.
These first V8 Vantages are certainly the fastest and also the lightest. Well two tons is not exactly light, but they did get heavier with lead lined sound proofing under the Wilton carpet. Then as the V8 went into 1979, the Oscar India V8 came out, and a Vantage model was available. Initially they kept the dash black and functional but then the wood from the standard V8 saloon fitted to the dash and door trim finish was made an option, but they were still fast! The (540) engine standing for 5.4 litre. The engine designation then changed to (580) many people assume this is now a larger engine. In fact it was the standardising of the larger Vantage valves in all V8 cylinder heads, this was done in 1980 so it became the 580! A typical Aston thing to do.
And there you have it. A big story behind the 16 cars. They were renowned as the first British supercar. Kean Roger’s Vantage books (there are to be five volumes,) these leather-bound books contain details of each car and their specifications, also factory memos all of which came from the Aston Martin records at Newport Pagnell just as the factory was winding down. They contain factory details and modifications through to the last V8 Vantage X Pack of the late 80’s, Kean and the late Roger Stowers from AML went through everything prior to Fords spring clean. Volumes 5 and 4 are printed but we are still waiting for the next three. Unfortunately, the volumes on newer cars were written first. These rare Astons, I am sure would not have been built without Robin Hamilton, who I believe was the catalyst. You would have to agree when these cars were clocked at 179 MPH at MIRA they were an extremly fast car for 1977.
