Aston’s Gran Turismo concept goes into play

Another Goodwood debutant, and something of a shocking one, was Aston Martin's DP-100 Vision Gran Turismo, which was unveiled on the Friday of the Festival. A dramatic, low wedge of a concept car, the DP-100 has actually been designed by Aston Martin to be digitised and used in the PlayStation Gran Turismo driving game. Notionally, it has a twin-turbo version of Aston's long-serving 6.0-litre V12 engine, but in reality its top speed will be determined more by your broadband download time.

Nonetheless, Aston is treating this car as more than just a frivolous “Saturday morning” project. The full-scale model shown at Goodwood has spent time in the wind tunnel to verify its aerodynamic qualities and both those and many of its styling cues are expected to trickle down to future Aston Martin production cars.

One clever detail, almost certainly set for future production, are the hinged carbon fibre blades built into the alloy wheels, which deflect and twist at speed to better direct low pressure air around and over the car.