Mystery British luxury sports car unveiled at a swanky London event.
Earlier in 2014 we reported a new British marque had announced plans to release a luxury sports car, releasing a teaser image showing the company logo to whet our appetites. Now the manufacturer, known as David Brown Automotive, has unveiled the whole shebang at an event in London.
The David Brown Speedback is a hand built 2+2 sports car. It fuses the styling of a 60s GT with modern underpinnings such as a spaceframe chassis and a six-speed automatic borrowed from the Jaguar XK.
Power comes from a 503bhp 5.0-litre V8, also from the XK. Performance figures are scarce, but that much power will undoubtedly mean a seriously fast 0 to 62mph time and top speed approaching 180mph. The Jaguar XK manages 0 to 62mph in 4.6 seconds.
“I was in a classic car rally in Spain, in a friend’s Ferrari Daytona, when it broke down. We hired a Peugeot 106 and everyone wanted to drive in that because it had air-conditioning,” CEO and founder David Brown told Auto Express. “It gave me the idea to blend the Sixties style with technology that worked properly.”
The Speedback is the result of a project called ‘Project Judi’. Ex-Land Rover chief designer Alan Mobberley and automotive engineering experts Envisage Group were tasked with bringing the car to production.
Interestingly the David Brown of David Brown Automotive is not the same as the man who bought Aston Martin in 1947 and helped revitalise the manufacturer. Just in case you were wondering.
Expect the price to be revealed around April 17th 2014 as that is when the Speedback officially debuts at the Top Marques show in Monaco.
Is the Speedback as beautiful as the Eagle Speedster Simon Cowell has been showing off? Perhaps not, but we sure would be happy parking one on our drive.
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