TEST POST

2007-05-17T19:00:00.000-04:00

When Aston Martin was purchased by a group of investors led by Prodrive founder Dave Richards, news of future production Astons began to fly. The rumored product that has garnered the most attention is the mid-engined Ferrari F430 fighter we told you about recently. We loved the idea last week, and we're still squarely in the corner of "hurry up and build it now." Some of you will remember that Prodrive actually built a one-off sports/rally coupe called the P2 before their acquisition of Aston. It boasted blistering speed, good looks, and catlike agility.

The P2 was built to showcase the company's race-inspired technology as applied to a road car, but production was never really an option, and for good reason. At the time, Prodrive didn't have a factory, and factories are expensive. Now that it owns Aston Martin, however, the factory is there, and Aston's desire for a supercar jibes perfectly with what Prodrive is highly adept at: building fast, highly capable race-bred vehicles. Now, no one's saying the P2 itself would be the basis of any Aston Martin. After all, it's based on the itty-bitty Subaru R1 (a JDM city car), which has no business being mentioned in the same breath as a $300,000 supercar.

Similarly, the turbo four driving the P2 is around 8 cylinders short of what a proper Aston Martin should have sitting in the engine compartment. The lessons learned and the technologies employed in building the P2, however, could certainly be leveraged on future Astons, including a supercar destined to fight the exotics. That's where the rally-inspired coupe could leave its mark on the superluxury brand's future portfolio.If you've never heard of the Prodrive P2, hit the jump to watch video of Top Gear's review of the concept car. It's handling is so good that Clarkson actually tossed his cookies after an extremely impressive cone maneuver (if you don't believe us, watch the video).

[Source: eGM CarTech]

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