A V12-powered fusion of British menace and Italian theatre, created not to improve the past but to place sixty years of shared history dramatically beside it.
At first glance, the DBS GT Zagato appears to have escaped from a concours lawn moments before somebody could explain moderation to it. The bonnet stretches towards the horizon, the roof swells into Zagato’s familiar double bubbles, and the rear window has vanished entirely beneath a single sweep of carbon fibre. Subtle it is not. Then again, subtlety is usually what manufacturers request when they have run out of courage.
This was the modern half of Aston Martin’s DBZ Centenary Collection, created to mark 100 years of the Milanese coachbuilder founded by Ugo Zagato in 1919. Only 19 pairs were offered, each coupling a newly built DB4 GT Zagato Continuation with this reimagined DBS. The price was £6 million before tax for the set, which rather efficiently separated committed collectors from people merely browsing.
The partnership itself began with the 1960 DB4 GT Zagato, a lighter, more voluptuous answer to Ferrari’s racing threat. Six decades later, Aston Martin chief creative officer Marek Reichman and Andrea Zagato faced a delicate task: honour that car without producing a carbon-fibre impersonation of it. Their solution was to use the DBS Superleggera as a mechanical foundation, then treat nearly every visible surface as negotiable.
The most theatrical feature is the active grille. Its 108 diamond-shaped carbon elements sit flush while the car is dormant, then open at start-up so the V12 can breathe. It is a magnificent piece of engineering theatre, rather like a peacock operated by software. Above it, the full-length carbon roof eliminates the rear screen, so a camera supplies the central mirror’s view. Form and function reached a compromise, then apparently celebrated with several sheets of carbon weave.
Beneath the sculpture remains Aston Martin’s 5.2-litre twin-turbocharged V12, tuned to 760 bhp and driving the rear wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission. Aston Martin did not publish a separate full performance sheet, but the DBS Superleggera beneath it managed 0–100 km/h in roughly 3.4 seconds and 340 km/h; the Zagato’s additional power suggests similarly indecent pace. This is still a front-engined grand tourer, yet one capable of rearranging the scenery before the passenger has finished admiring the gold trim.
Its proportions follow the donor DBS: approximately 4,712 mm long, 1,968 mm wide, 1,280 mm high and riding on a 2,805 mm wheelbase. Kerb weight was not officially disclosed for the Zagato, though the carbon bodywork and bespoke fittings place it in broadly the same territory as the 1,693 kg DBS coupe. Carbon-ceramic brakes, adaptive damping and a mechanical limited-slip differential ensure the jewellery remains useful when the road begins to fold.
Inside, Zagato introduced the world’s first configurable automotive use of 3D-printed carbon and metal finishes, including aluminium and gold-plated stainless steel. Customers could specify genuine 18-carat gold details, because ordinary brightwork would have seemed distressingly restrained. Yet beneath the precious surfaces lies a familiar Aston cabin architecture, which is reassuring: even a £6 million pairing still needs switches for demisting.
The GT Zagato was never intended to be the sharper circuit weapon or the rational choice beside a standard DBS. Its purpose was ceremonial. It joined two companies at their most characteristic: Aston Martin supplying the long-bonnet V12 menace, Zagato reshaping it with Italian sensuality and the occasional refusal to acknowledge straight lines.
That is also why its collector significance extends beyond rarity. The 19 cars cannot be understood separately from their DB4 companions; each pair forms a conversation between 1960 and 2020, analogue competition and digital craftsmanship, aluminium history and printed metal. Most continuation projects recreate the past. This one forced the past to share a garage with its own extravagant future.
The DBS GT Zagato did not modernise a classic shape; it turned sixty years of friendship into a single, very expensive gesture.
Its greatness is therefore not measured by lap records or showroom practicality. It represents coachbuilding in an age when regulations, platforms and production efficiency increasingly make cars resemble close relatives at a family wedding. Here was a machine created because two firms remembered that beauty can be unreasonable, engineering can be theatrical, and rarity should occasionally feel genuinely rare.
