V8 Volante LWB

V8 Volante LWB Description

Announced: August 1997

Unveiled: October 1997

In production: December 1997 – June 2000

Chassis numbers: 89001 – 89064 (excluding 89012 and 89062) plus 89501

To describe the V8 Volante Long Wheelbase (LWB) simply as a drop-top version of the V8 Coupe is an over simplification. The principal reason for this is that the chassis of the Volante was absolutely unique to the model with an additional 200 mm added to the wheelbase, almost all of which was dedicated to providing the fortunate rear seat passengers, who also benefited from 20 mm of rear shoulder space, with more leg room. The boot also offered a very useful 100% increase in luggage space over the previous Virage Volante giving the LWB a reputation as a genuinely practical continental touring car. Arguably, the LWB Volante could be considered as the most spacious Aston of all time until bettered by the arrival of the four-door Rapide in 2009.

The engine that powered the Volante was the same 349 bhp unit fitted to the Coupe but with a /97 prefix. This was mated to a four speed Chrysler TorqueFlite automatic gearbox with sport and touring modes. There was no manual gearbox option whatsoever. The front and rear suspension featured revised geometry together with the spring and shock absorber settings which were tailored precisely to the needs of an extended wheelbase tourer with few sporting pretentions.

The interior of the Volante had some notable differences to the closed V8 Coupe and Vantage. The electrically operated memory front seats were unique to the car designed for comfort rather than sportiness. Also the centre console was unique with the four minor dials mounted two above two and with two DIN apertures for the Alpine radio cassette player and optional Alpine satnav with retractable screen. A six CD Alpine multichanger was concealed behind the passenger side burr walnut veneer trim. Sometimes the second DIN slot was used as a visual display for optional front and rear parking sensors. Special hydraulic door check straps were developed to control the opening and closing of the sizeable doors. The interior temperature could be controlled with a Jaguar sourced air-conditioning system which had replaceable pollen filters. From the late 1990s, Works Service offered a number of specialist upgrades to the 'V cars', such as Driving Dynamics brakes, suspension, sports exhaust and six-spoke OZ Vantage wheels or five-spoke lightweight Dymag wheels. Many of these can be seen on examples of the LWB Volante.

Oddly, whilst the factory did possess a press demonstrator, there are no known published road tests either in period or in the classic magazines so this interesting model has been somewhat overlooked.

A total of 63 examples were built over a short two year production run. The first four cars were built with what appear to be prototype VIN numbers and prototype engine numbers: two of these are believed to have been destroyed. One single car had an out of sequence chassis number 89501 for a special customer although it is believed that this example has an identical specification to the other sequentially numbered cars. The 63 cars were split into 37 RHD for customers in the UK and Australia with 26 LHD sold to customers in mainland Europe. The car was not available in North America.

The most popular colour chosen for the LWB Volante was blue, reflecting the colour of the original motor show car: predominantly Antrim and Mendip with a total of 26. Green was also popular with 21 (mostly Pentland), followed by Black with 10 examples.

V8 Volante LWB Variants

Roos shooting brake, 2005

One car, a left hand drive example, chassis 89034 underwent a substantial conversion with shooting brake coachwork by AM Heritage specialist, Roos Engineering, Switzerland. The work involved fabricating totally new coachwork aft of the 'A' pillar together with a single piece tailgate and followed similar conversions by Roos on a supercharged Vantage and an Aston Martin Lagonda.

V8 Volante LWB Specification