Aston Martin V12 Vantage – US bound

Aston Martin has revealed the V12 Vantage will be sold in America; the Aston Martin Cygnet will go on sale in 2010 and the Rapide should sell 2,000 a year.

It’s eight months since Aston Martin announced that they were turning the V8 Vantage in to the car it should always have been – by dropping in the V12. And so was born the Aston Martin V12 Vantage, a car many said would never be made because it would undermine sales of the the DBS.

But Aston Martin had a response to the harm the V12 Vantage may inflict on other Astons – it limited the run. We were told that just 1,000 V12 Vantages were going to be made. But it looks like that may be about to change after Aston boss – Dr Ulrich Bez – revealed in an interview with Car & Driver that the V12 Vantage is in the process of being homologated for the US. Which is very good news for all Aston Martin fans on the other side of the pond. And inevitably – even in these constrained times – it means that 1,000 V12 Vantages will probably not be enough to go round the world now the US comes in to the equation.

But the good doctor had a few more nuggets of information up his sleeve. Aston are aiming to shift around 2,000 a year of their Porsche Panamera busting  Aston Martin Rapide we saw finally launched at Frankfurt; the Aston Martin Cygnet – the tiny AM based on the Toyota iQ – will launch next year; and there is a new Lagonda concept in the pipeline.

Now two of these we’ll take as news – we didn’t know production numbers for the Rapide, and this is the first confirmation we’ve had that the Cygnet will go in to production. But we do keep being told that there’s a new Lagonda concept coming. The last new was that there would be a Mercedes S Class based Lagonda, and prior to that – back in March – David Richards – Prolink and AM chief – said that there would be a new Lagonda concept in May, which would be nothing like the poorly recieved Lagonda SUV Concept at Geneva.

But we’re still waiting.