Henrik Fisker's own automotive company may have gone under, but his love for design persists and after the Galpin 2015 Mustang, he's back to what he knows best with the Thunderbolt study.
It's the former Aston Martin designers one-off coachbuilt take on the Vanquish V12 coupe and it was revealed today at the 2015 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in Florida.
"I wanted to create an elegant beautiful GT sports coupe, with pure emotional sculpture, that would stay timeless," said Fisker, who pointed out that the Thunderbolt was "in no way affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Aston Martin".
The prototype has a completely redesigned body made out of carbon fiber featuring Fisker's signature lines, while the interior was redone with new materials and details, including the world's first application of Panasonic's 11.6-inch Curved Control Screen in a car that is designed to reduce reflections and glare.
The only performance-related upgrades mentioned are the lowering of standard car's ride height by 15mm and the 21-inch alloy wheels with sport tires.
Fisker said that, while there will be no commercialization of the prototype shown at Amelia, "based on initial response, an extremely limited number of additional cars could be made on a special order basis, available exclusively through Galpin Aston Martin". These cars would not get the prototype Panasonic screen and would features some minor styling adjustments to the front end with a different grille and bumper, as seen in the red rendering.
The folks over at Galpin Auto Sports call this the "Ultimate American Muscle Car" and judging by both specs as well as looks, holy cow, they might be right!
The Rocket, co-designed by Galpin and Henrik Fisker, was first unveiled in concept form at the 2014 LA Auto Show, where it pretty much won us over thanks to its overly aggressive looks and 725 HP supercharged V8 unit.
Fisker was quoted back then saying that he was inspired by 60's American muscle cars, specifically the 68 Shelby GT500 and its long hood and huge air intakes.
Luckily, he was able to replicate that dramatic look, and now we have this, the first production Rocket to stare at. Fittingly, it's wearing gloss black and subtle racing stripes so as not to upset the dark theme which follows through to the 21" 10 spoke ADV.1 wheels.
Its carbon fiber body was constructed by GFMI Metalcrafters, while its Cat-Black exhaust system with quad tips comes from Bassani Xhaust. The hexagonal grille at the front does look a little Jaguar-ish but we're not going to take away any points for that.
Meanwhile, other styling changes include the new front bumper, new hood, extended rear wheel arches, bootlid lip spoiler, a new rear bumper and a Gran Turismo brake package from Brembo.
You can have yours in either Black, Ingot Silver, Magnetic, Oxford White, Race Red, Deep Impact Blue or Competition Orange - or basically 7 of the 10 available factory Mustang colors.
Naturally, with all that power, comes stiffer responsibility, and so the Rocket also features a custom suspension setup which you'd definitely need in order to keep this thing in check.
As for straight line performance, no official numbers yet, but there are those who estimate (unofficially) that the Rocket will reach 60 mph (96km/h) in 3.5 seconds, followed by a top speed of 186 mph (300 km/h) - which doesn't sound right to us. It should be a lot faster than that.
Oh and also, it's hard to decide which looks better, the production Rocket or the silver prototype sitting next to it. So let's call it a tie.
.jpg)
Posts
