Aston Martin Vanquish 25 By Callum: A legend recreated

After what can only be described as a glittering career in the automotive industry, the legend that is Ian Callum has stepped out with some friends with his own company, Callum. And its first product is right behind me. It's essentially a reworking of Ian Callum's greatest ever hits, the Aston Martin Vanquish and we're here to find out All about what makes the new car very special. So in comes, We're in your new facility Yes Tell us about your new company. Well, It's a group of us come together and we create this company called coulomb. And where did they get the name? They choose it not me. I was gonna call it something else but they want to use the name column. That's fine. It's a good name. It's all right. Our intention is to be a design and automotive company. And I want to stick with more of a bespoke lifestyle essence rather than get into mass manufacturing, I've been 40 years of that now. I feel like I've done enough I want to get me at something a bit more indulgent. Yes. A bit more specialized, a bit more fun. So that's what we're doing. Let's talk about Vanquish itself, cuz you have a pretty decent connection with the Aston Martin Vanquish. Yeah, I did a lot of work for us and going back to the 90s of course, the DB seven, then the Vanquish and then DB nine and a good part of the advantage as well. The Vanquish was really one of my favorite Cars of all of them because it's a very spontaneous car and it looks spontaneous few lines of it's got real life to it and it still remains one of my favorite cars quite a while ago I want to do this a personal project I bought a vanquish I thought I want to do it up in a way that I felt the car deserved. It never got a second time round it never got a facelift. The car was only production for about six years. And I felt it needed that second iteration so that I'd do it to my own car. Speaking to David he said Well why don't we turn this into a proper project that we can help people. You know perhaps and by a limited number of them. I said well if we can make it work let's do it that way. We built the first one, and here it is and I'm very pleased with it. It does look mega and seeing the two side by side, when I first saw this, I was like, that's a, that's a [UNKNOWN] vanquish and then you brought that one out, I was like, it's so different. If you're going to redesign or re establish a car like this, you have to do in the. Within the balance for the car race, and when you see it, especially against the old one, you realize how much tougher the car is, and that's why I wanted to deal with it, just to make it look stronger and tougher and it seems to work To explain what Calum has done mechanically, it's a divanguished by Calum, the company engineering director Adurn Donfrachescho was on hand to have a quick chat. We all absolutely love the Vanquish. I think it's really important that you know this is really a celebration of what of what that car is. And we're taking all the attributes that we like and dialing them right up. I was just so in awe of its performance and the noise it made and its presence on the road. That was a real pivotal moment actually. So it's great to be able to fast forward that period of time and to be here. Getting your hands on it and changing it in the way that we think. Customer really appreciate. From a chassis perspective, we worked on springs and dampers anti-robot. Really want to maintain a GT ride quality. We've increased the power by about 6070 horsepower. [UNKNOWN] Pretty much flat list of talk, across the board. We done that, with a combination of calibration internal hardware. Got some beautiful primary manifolds. Unfortunately, a shred in this heat shield under the car. So you can't see them you'd like a set on our wall. Things that we loved about original vanquish. We love the noise of the car. The car was it was fantastic, from my perspective. So we developed with acoustic specialists. The noise to be a little bit sharper a little bit louder a little bit more of an event. You start digging and you find that okay. We'd like this to be a little bit better. We'd like things like the steering wheel like the soon to be a bit more tactile. You tend to get a little bit on top of the car in the original car. We want to make you sit. For the day much more secure in the seats in the book steering wheel further towards you change the economics of the panel shifts are really keen to make sure that this is a whole package. It's not an exercise it solely was with design or an exercise solely liquid oil is something that I think it's really great with working with Ian is he has an appreciation understanding for engineering. There's a real product creation back and forth with the team, which, I think when you've got that message coming from from the top that really filters down and everybody's really on the same page in terms of what we're trying to achieve. Let's talk through some of some of it. So if we start at the front, what's the big difference? So bigger grill a much more. Forum or grill in many ways and much more assertive. We've taken a graphic. We've filled up the whole front end and it's stronger and it's more assertive. And remember that I did this car over 20 years ago. So since then I've learnt a little bit about how to work shapes and forms and lines and I think it's just got stronger front end and then we get this lovely splitter that runs right through the front. And then to decide the car. Again, another detail, I'm rather obsessed about having the front of the car sitting and working with the rest of it. There's so many designs out there where the front and the rear, they're kinda broken from the middle, and so it's about getting that line through. And then moving back into car we've got you headlamps one of these lamps actually has an indicator on the outside bring of it and it means we take the indicator out of the lower half and put it into the lamp unit, which we couldn't really do when we did this originally. Now one thing I've noticed is the the cooling vents on the on the head. The pattern on there. It's a theme throughout the car and so can you talk us through what that is. Yes, we designed a new pattern which we put into the interior in various parts of the car. I call it my abstract tartan. For obvious reasons a little bit of my own nationalism coming up but. It's an abstract art and then then we've developed that into various patterns which you see. Throughout the car in various materials. You also see the same on the side as well. And you'll see on the tires too. What we have here is we have a redesigned bigger alloy. A bigger alloy 20 inch and 19 inch because the original car had 19 inch wheels. I've picked the same style with a divisional vanquishing. We thought about redesigning it. But you know the original feel that I worked on is probably one of my favorite wheels. I thought why reinventing? Let's put it back on but just make it bigger. We've also increased the width of it and the offset so it sits in the car in a much stronger way so the stance of the car changes dramatically especially towards the rear when we pull the wheels out not only affect the handling positively. But also it gives the body a sense of stretch. It actually looks like the body is wider. It's not it's the same, but it's as it's wider. The original wingers. We actually took off an old Jagger. I think it was XK ,if I remember, and I felt the car deserve that much slicker winger so we've actually redesigned the wing. Mirror. This is not often your account, this is unique to this car. And now. But we felt it was worth the cost now we got the indicator in there. Which means you don't need to repeat. Yes we don't need [UNKNOWN] Doing this must feel pretty awesome to kind of give your your baby. Then the second coming if you feel it deserved. Yes, and that's very exciting. It's very satisfying. And at the end of the day, the final judge of this will be me. Which is, quite indulgence, and also, it's quite scary in a way because there is nobody else giving opinion or saying we can't do this, we can't do that. You know, you're out there on the rim saying this is why I think it should be right for it. And hoping the world agrees with you. These pieces were things that frustrated me because we were doing this in such a tight budget at a time. We know we're kind of fixing. One of my favorite bets. Is this what's been done since the fuel filler cap. Would you say to reduce the lovely carbon finish around it almost looks like one of these fuel fillers. And we've put a little bit of signature here it says rebel rebel. Because Bowie? Because I'm a great Bowie fan, and also because it's exactly how I feel at the moment. [LAUGH] Just stirring up a little bit. The rear. No. You have this huge change here. Yeah. So what have you done? Well, we've taken the chrome signature blade off the back, and we put in body color. Could you tell us in the car the other big thing is we've reshaped the bumper tucking it back onto the car and this lovely and cheery enough cos it's built into it much more exaggerated form that is white than there is. Yes a big feature but it works. And we've lifted the whole surface of that up quite dramatically from the old car so we will get better aerodynamics out of this. And of course then that's all set off for these detailed exhaust pipes. Talk us through what you've done to the interior, because it is radically different, from anything that's come before. The big story of this car is the interior. Because when we did the original car, I was never happy about the interior. I wasn't entirely in control of charge of it. We have a lot of our abstract tartan in various places. We have new dials that we've designed with Breitling watches We have a Brain One watch in the car. Actually you can click it and take it out and take it away with because it's a proper mechanical watch. It's a nice idea, something we thought about many years ago.from another car we did 675. But this time we'll make more than one [LAUGH] We always felt that the original seats design cliche were always a little bit too high So we've changed the profile of them so you sit lower in the car and we have the color logo on the headrest. Soon bill is 23. It's down to business. [UNKNOWN] [LAUGH] It's kind of allowed. It is a load like [UNKNOWN] you're enjoying it. Yeah. I'm enjoying it. You'ill like to enjoy it, you will spent 20 years in Jaguar. You took Jaguar from. Kind of what it was into being super cool, job done, now you're working on the greatest hits essentially. And I'm working on my greatest hits you're right actually, now I'm going back to number bonds and remastering them. Ueato you built 25 remastered- We hope so, yeah. Calum's Greatest Hits Volume One. When do you reckon is going to be on the road? When is it gonna be ready? [INAUDIBLE] We start building the first production car later on this year, and then we'll move on from there. So I recommend about 18 months worth of production and the first car should be on the road at the end of this year. So what this can go on to do after this that you can talk about this and we'll see how this goes. We've got a big job in front of us. But we do have plans to do something that's even more of a redesign on this on perhaps another car. That's really all I'm gonna say at the moment. But the next one will be more of a project than this and hopefully one day you'll see a completely reshaped car. Maybe not the next one but perhaps the one after that. We'll see. Once you kinda design the highlight what was the most satisfying bit to make your own Remake your own? That's such a difficult question. Which of your children do you like the most? Yeah, I think the very presence of the car, just looks so much stronger. The way the car sits in the wheels, is a bit lower, it's wider. That's very important and I'm gonna enjoy that when I see it on the road. Because, trust me when you see this coming towards you, you'll know it's there. I mean the current vanquish has a lot of presence. This is gonna have twice as much presence. But the better I would have to say at one to admire the most that we've actually done is the interior. We've fixed the interior, we've done something which I think is bang up to date. And I think for a lot of vanquisher owners, they will appreciate that more than anything. Because for me that was probably the weakest part of the car. Here's a thought what if a vanquish owner sees this and goes and comes to you and goes. Can I find her? No no no not this interior belongs to this car. It comes as a package. It will not spread it to any other car unless the exterior looks like this because. You have to see this as a totality. This is a statement. You can't split it up into parts and sell them off. This is not a black pack or a GT pack or a [UNKNOWN] pack. This is the car you're gonna get. Well, John, thank you so much for taking us around- Thank you. To Vanquish harder. Yeah. It's been mega and I can't wait to see it out on the road, thank you so much. Thank you. [SOUND]