The Aston Martin Bulldog's 320 km/h Comeback
Aston Martin is known for producing luxurious and high-performance cars. In the past, cars like the DB5 were regarded as some of the most beautiful cars ever made; in fact, it still is today. However, there is one model which, despite being one-of-one, looks like a child carved its silhouette out of a block of wood.
The Aston Martin Bulldog is an interesting concept for a high-speed Aston Martin of the 70s. It is an odd-looking car which resembles a similar but longer shape to the DeLorean. The vehicle was designed to reach a speed of 380 km/h but was scrapped following testing when it couldn't even clock 305 km/h.
Now, 40 years later, the Bulldog has finally broken the 200 miles per hour (322 km/h) barrier with 7,000 hours of restoration. To achieve this goal, there were two focus points. Bring the Bulldog back to showroom quality and add more power. The original Bulldog had a 5.3-litre twin-turbocharged V8, which produced 441 kW and 578 Nm of torque. After the fitment of modern fuel injectors, the refreshed Bulldog now pushes 478 kW, which was just enough to drag the door-stop-looking car over the 200 mph milestone. Some gearbox modification was needed to deal with the new power figures.
Tim Griffin, the managing director of Classic Motor Cars, expressed the importance of maintaining the Bulldog's originality throughout the project to ensure that the one-of-one concept car remains as close to the original product as possible. Whilst also being capable of safely reaching the benchmark speed.
The Bulldog finally broke the 200 miles per hour mark on Machrihanish Airfield in Scotland, setting a top speed of 205.4 mph (331 km/h). Yes, this isn't as fast as the original Aston Martin engineers intended, but for a nearly 50-year-old car to finally achieve such a speed is an outstanding achievement from the team at Classic Motor Cars. After hours of restoration, a precious gem from the UK has been given a second lease on life.
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