Win on Sunday, sell on Monday – that’s the rationale behind lots of car manufacturers’ involvement in motorsport. They hope success on the track will drive sales in the showroom, as the brand’s models are shown in a positive light in front of fans.
Back in the fifties and sixties, converting a road car for racing often required little a lot more than
fitting a roll cage and covering
the lights with tape. but today’s strict safety policies have made
the process a lot a lot more complex, and British outfit Prodrive is an expert at making race-winning versions of roadgoing models. We headed to its factory in Banbury, Oxfordshire, to see just what goes into creating a modern Aston Martin Vantage GT racer, before joining the team’s pit
crew at the Silverstone world Endurance championship (WEC) round.
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Each racer starts life as a standard Vantage body plucked unpainted from the rows of shells on the assembly line at Gaydon, Warks. The bonded and riveted construction makes Astons well suited to motorsport, because they don’t suffer from the heat distortion caused by welding.
The a lot of crucial aspect of
a race car build is the roll cage.
It need to be very strong and rigid to secure motorists from high-speed impacts on track. Cages are fitted before painting begins, and the body is fixed to the floor of the workshop for installation.
