Exclusive: up close with the new Aston Martin DP-100

The Aston Martin DP-100 Vision Gran Turismo, a conceptual 800bhp mid-engined supercar that only exists in the virtual world, has been unveiled at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

A crack Aston Martin design team spent a hectic six months creating the radical machine, but it will never carry a passenger or turn a wheel in anger.

Designed on the proverbial blank sheet of paper, the car is a virtual-only GT racer created for the hugely popular Gran Turismo 6 computer game. GT6’s creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, has invited a small group of car companies and “cool brands” to create new products and launch them within the game over the next 12 months.

The proposed twin-turbo V12 Aston is soon to be ready for download by gamers, and as well as the virtual car, Aston Martin has created a full-size 3D display model to stress that this is far from being a frivolous project.

“Many of the design cues visible on DP-100 could feed into future sports cars we’ll launch in the offline world,” says Aston Martin design director Marek Reichman, who led the project.

The model, seen exclusively by Autocar between completion and shipping to Goodwood, a few hours before its official launch, bristles with Aston references freshly and subtly expressed.

DP-100 is intended as a proper GT race car, short-nosed and low, with a cab-forward layout to give maximum space for a large V12-based powertrain behind the driver. In the flesh is looks imposing but compact; nowhere near as large as a full-size Lamborghini for instance.

On the upper flanks there’s well-defined chine-line each side, running from the rear of each front wheel, upward and rearward to define the car’s proportions and especially its prominent rear haunches, which are almost architectural in form.

The car’s styling refers clearly to the Aston Martin One-77 supercar (via a well-defined chine-line that runs around the car and defines its stance), to the recent CC100 anniversary car and even to Aston’s revolutionary mid-engined Bulldog concept of the early 1980s. Designed by the late William Towns, it had the same sort of radically 'waisted' body style.

Race-bred aerodynamics contribute much to DP-100’s overall look, but designers have taken trouble to avoid crudely added wings or cut holes to relieve high pressure areas. In key places air is ducted straight through the car — to benefit of engine and downforce. The central front air intake has an unmissable Aston grille-shape, flanked by a pair of ducts that carry air straight through the body to exit across a very large, Le Mans-style diffuser.

“We designed the car according to a philosophy we call RaceCraft,” explains chief exterior designer Miles Nurnberger, “which combines the no-nonsense requirements of a race car with the kind of beauty and sophistication you find on a really well-crafted road car.