The Aston Martin Virage is an intriguing specimen among the variety of high-end GT cars the company has produced over the years. Caught between various ownership groups and severe financial issues, it’s amazing the company produced anything of merit at all throughout the 1990s. The Virage is considered by many to be the last true Aston Martin, even though the company was tangled up in Dearborn’s leadership by this point. It was still defiantly British, even when there were barely two pennies to rub together. This Virage listed here on eBay is rarely seen in the U.S. and is bid to $11,000 with the reserve unmet.
As a testament to how much parts bin raiding was happening just to keep the lights on at Aston Martin, check this out: the taillights are from a MK2 Volkswagen Scirocco and the headlights from an Audi 5000. That doesn’t get into any other potential cheap-feeling switchgear, but I’m sure there are other examples of components from other manufacturers. The Virage was meant to be a quintessential grand tourer, constructed out of aluminum and equipped with V8 power. However, it was still quite heavy, which stunted its performance potential to an extent.
Still, you’re talking about an old Aston in the best way possible: brute force looks, handsome yet fierce, old-world arrogance with modern-day usability. It’s everything an Aston should be, along with the inevitable reliability and build quality quirks that seem to plague their products. The interior of this Virage is still entirely fetching, with green piping on the gray leather seats, woodgrain everywhere you look, and thick carpeting emblazoned with the iconic Aston logo. This is what you imagine when you think of aristocracy on wheels.
And the 5.3L DOHC V8 was a charmer, even if it couldn’t deliver the blistering performance it may have originally promised. With 335 horsepower, it was no slouch, but it also weighed 4,000 pounds. 60 miles per hour clocked in around 6.5 seconds which was quick, but not nearly as fast as its looks would other promise. Of course, Aston offered factory upgrades which significantly increased performance, and those special builds are quite sought after today. This is an enormously appealing car with the seller claiming lots of recent maintenance work already done.
Fantastic car. 🇬🇧
Who in their right mind takes the components of an independent rear suspension & turns it into something that resembles a live-axle with Watts linkage??? No wonder they were floundering at this point.
What a strange piece. Aston would’ve done well to take the bones of the Ford MN12 platform & built off that.
Looks like a De Dion axle, generally well-regarded as the best, most sophisticated approach for a rigid axle short of a fully independent design, with some advantages of its own vs. a full IRS. Check the wiki article for more details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Dion_suspension
The bit there about add’l torque links or upper wishbones being required with outboard brakes was a bit puzzling, as the Virage doesn’t appear to have such extra pieces. However, I think they avoided that by having the semi-trailing arms and beam axle with integrated hub carriers all effectively a single, rigid unit made of stout cast aluminum pieces, which resists “winding up” the suspension, so all braking and acceleration forces are transmitted to the car through the center pivot on the floorpan that the semi-trailing arms are triangulated to.
Nice car but maintenance coasts would devour any value.
Have always wanted one; expenses and maintenance be damned.
Has always been part of my lottery fever dream garage.
Motorized mouse shoulder harnesses!
A cool-looking car but I wouldn’t want to pay for the maintenance.
Bid to $11k with 22 hour to go for a car listed at $79,9k on their site. Someone is dreaming.