A future supercar called the Aston Martin Bulldog wanted to be the first to go faster than 200 mph. Even though the expensive car company had problems, it never fully met that standard. More than 40 years later, revenge is on the way as the Bulldog finally gets ready to cross the double-ton barrier. Road and Track say that Aston Martin’s fallen hero is having a meeting with fate right now. On June 6, the gull-winged supercar will head to Scotland’s Machrihanish Airfield. During the run, Darren Turner, an Aston Martin staff driver, will drive the Bulldog as it tries to reach the goal it was made to match. Turner is qualified for the job because he has won his class thrice at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 1979, the Bulldog was first seen by the public. It was written by William Towns and had a fantastic wedge shape meant to carry the Lagonda sedan’s avant-garde design style 20 years into the future. According to tests, it has a powerful 5.3-liter twin-turbo V8 engine that can make up to 700 horsepower. When Victor Gauntlett took over as CEO of Aston Martin in 1981, the project was put on hold because of money problems. In 1980, when the Bulldog was put through its paces with only 400 horsepower, it hit 191 mph, which was very close to its goal. After being out in the wild for years, the car was shown to the public again in late 2021, when its new owners restored the one-of-a-kind design to its former glory. The car had been sitting still for a while and had been owned by several people before an American investor named Philip Sarofim bought it. He gave the job of getting the Bulldog up to 200 miles per hour to the British company Classic Motor Cars. Ironically, Richard Gauntlett would join the project even though his father had stopped it. The first time the car was tested, in December 2021, it reached 162 mph. On later runs, the Bulldog has gone faster than 170 mph. The crew has been making minor changes to the car along the way to make sure it can hit 200 mph safely. In the repair job, keeping the original architecture and strengthening weak spots were more critical than replacing them. The Bulldog almost became the first mass-produced car to go 200 miles per hour, but it didn’t make it. It’s great to see that, after all this time, this future wedge is finally doing what it was made to do. It should be a pleasant memory of all the things that could happen.
