What's the news?
David Brown Automotive has finally taken the covers fully off its Speedback Silverstone Edition. With the Speedback's design inspired by the Aston Martin DB5, the Silverstone Edition, built to celebrate the company factory's relocation to Silverstone last year, is a more aggressive take on the classic British grand tourer.
The Silverstone Edition supposedly takes its styling cues from 1960s racing cars and old jet-planes, considering Silverstone circuit's dual-history as a racetrack and a World War II bomber base. The body is hand built in aluminium and streamlined with extended side-skirts, a front spoiler, bigger rear diffuser and bigger side vents, badged with "Silverstone Edition" logos. The grille is fitted with twin LED auxiliary driving lamps that go alongside the dark ceramic LED headlamps and clear lens tail lights. 'Fly by Night' dark metallic paint is set off nicely with brushed chrome brightwork and tinted rear glass. Everything sits on forged, 20-inch 'Afterburner' alloy wheels.
The Speedback uses Jaguar's supercharged 5.0-litre V8 petrol engine and the Silverstone Edition sees a hefty power increase over the standard model, up to 601hp from 510hp, going to the rear wheels via a six-speed ZF automatic gearbox. To cope with the extra power, the suspension has been upgraded and there are a couple of features like dynamic stability control, high performance brakes and an active rear differential.
With all this aggression and performance, has the Speedback Silverstone lost any of its gentlemanly credentials? Not at all. It's just a little bit more of a bruiser. It's the Sean Connery to the standard Speedback's Roger Moore.
The gentleman-thug theme is further highlighted in the seats, which, though featuring an outline of the Silverstone circuit (criss-crossed by runways) on the headrests, are finished in sumptuous, tan, brogued leather. Those seats are heated and fully adjustable, by the way. There's more brushed chrome inside too with an aeronautical-styled speedometer and tachometer alongside old-school aluminium switchgear. There's leather, Alcantara and "open-pore, scorched 'Ebony Macassar' wood veneer", lest you think that interior is a bit too metallic. Despite the car's outward appearance, it's all very modern inside with satnav, Bluetooth connectivity and a Bowers & Wilkins surround-sound audio system. There's no back seat though - instead you get plenty of luggage space behind the front seats for all your grand touring.
Anything else?
David Brown Automotive is only building ten Speedback Silverstone Editions and prices start at around €694,000, excluding taxes, duty and shipping. As the Speedback is built to order, you can have yours in either left- or right-hand drive, although Automotive is only building ten Silverstone Editions so your chances of bagging one is slim...