Aston's Twenty Twenty vision not so perfect

Aston Martin. Quintessentially British. Sometimes, a little bit Italian.

In the early 2000s Aston was on its way to recovery. Ford slowly turned the brand around and the DB7 was a much-needed march in the right direction. It was designed by now-legendary Brit Ian Callum. You know, of Jaguar F-Type fame.

Zagato, too, has a long history of Aston Martin specials, releasing 100 or so cars for the DB7, DB9 and Vantage respectively. An Italian design firm that isn’t really famous for Aston designs though, is Italdesign Giugiaro.

It may have worked with Aston on occasion, but this car – the Aston Martin Twenty Twenty – unveiled at the 2001 Geneva motor show, was their first crack at the brand since the '60s.

If its name isn’t clear enough, this was the firm’s vision for the future of Aston Martin. In the year 2020. Yeah. It’s a bit of a miss.

If you’re wondering what’s with the silver highlights that almost make it look like some kind of metal woody wagon, they’re apparently designed to highlight the load-bearing structures of the car. Italdesign call this the ‘dominant aesthetic feature’ but to today’s eyes we’d argue it isn’t aesthetic at all.

Then there’s the giant vents that expose the 6.0-litre V12 up the front, the squared-off targa roof and the almost Cadillac-esque hind quarters.

Some bits that do translate to today’s design include those thin, sharply tapered headlamps that look sort of like the ND MX-5's and the fully accented front wing side vents (an Aston signature) that would make it into the DB9’s design a few years later.

The engine was a worked version of the DB7’s V12 that produced 372kW up from the standard car’s 313kW. The regular V12 already charged from 0-100km/h in 4.9 seconds, so at least this thing was by no means slow.

Aston reportedly found the design ‘interesting’ but did not pursue it (can you imagine…) So, the Geneva motor show car is the only one in existence. Rumor has it, Italdesign still have the car behind closed doors, on the pile of concepts that didn’t date well. Oh well. I suppose hindsight is twenty twenty…

What do you think of Italdesign’s Aston Martin Twenty Twenty? Tell us in the comments.