New lease of life for the British supercar that ran out of runway

It was designed to be the first road car to break 200 miles per hour – and it came tantalisingly close. But the dire economic conditions of 1981 robbed the Aston Martin Bulldog of the chance to smash the record.

Instead, the futuristic-looking supercar, of which only one was built, reached a speed of 191.8mph and was subsequently sold to bolster the company’s ailing finances. Now, with the help of the Royal Navy, the Bulldog is on the brink of achieving its destiny, having had a 6,000-hour restoration.

Yesterday, it was paraded on the deck of Britain’s newest aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, a meeting of the most advanced maritime and military technology of 2021 with cutting-edge automotive engineering of 1981. Over the next three months, the car will be trialled at ever increasing speeds on naval air fields, en route to 200mph.

For Richard Gauntlett, son of Victor, once chairman of Aston Martin who was forced to sell the Bulldog as the energy crisis prompted a UK recession, the restoration and renewed record attempt are the realisation of a dream.

“It’s quite a British story in that the car was built in a time of great adversity and it has been restored in a time of great adversity,” he said.

With its 5.3-litre twin-turbocharged V8, the Bulldog was designed with a projected top speed of 237mph.

Keith Martin, the test driver for the 191.8mph run, was adamant that the car was still accelerating as he ran out of runway. But, beset by financial woes and nervous about asking customers to fork out £200,000 a piece for one of the 25 Bulldogs they had originally planned to build, Aston Martin abandoned the project, selling the one they had made to a collector from the Middle East.