Meet the Aston Vanquish-based 'Thunderbolt'

Here's Henrik Fisker's latest design concept, based on the Aston Martin Vanquish and revealed at last weekend's Amelia Island Concours. It's called the ‘Thunderbolt'. Good start.

Of course, Mr Fisker has more right than most to reconfigure Aston's top dog GT car, because it was he who designed the timeless shape of the Aston DB9. This Thunderbolt then, is his vision for the ultimate Vanquish. It's also a one-off, so is quite precious.

He says he wanted to create "an elegant, beautiful GT sports coupe," and as such, has reshaped the exterior with hand-laid carbon fibre. There's a power dome, sculpted air intakes and new head lights up front, together with a wraparound rear window, ‘blade-like' tail lights, and an aluminium grille.

He's also lowered the ride height by 15mm and added 21in alloys shod in performance rubber. Inside, there's an 11.6in curved Panasonic control screen, a Maurice Lacroix ‘Skeleton' chronograph built into the dashboard, leather trim from an Italian furniture manufacturer (Natuzzi), and even a champagne/wine bottle holder. How very 007.

Mr Fisker makes it clear his one-off Thunderbolt concept isn't endorsed by Aston Martin in any way, but if you were to declare your interest, he'd make it on a special order basis, available exclusively through Galpin Aston Martin. These production cars would look like the one in red in the pictures above, featuring a revised front end, a new grille and sans Panasonic screen.

"Aston Martin already makes some of the most beautiful and powerful cars available today," said Galpin Aston Martin's president Beau Boeckmann. "Henrik's design builds upon this."

What do you think?