Aston Martin Virage 6.3: stop-gap treasure

By Aaron McKay

| 2 Jul 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Aston Martin Virage 6.3: stop-gap treasure

“We were even close to giving one customer his money back,” recalled one dealer.

“There were lots of complaints about the handling and the residuals were falling massively, even calls from Germany: ‘It will only do 153mph!’ said the autobahners.”

It was a situation that Aston Martin could not afford.

All bets had been placed on the Virage, unveiled at the 1988 Birmingham Motor Show, with latest financier Ford looking over the company’s shoulder as the dice were thrown.

The Aston Martin Virage’s damp-squib start prompted the heavy-hitting 6.3 conversion

More than 50 five-figure deposits had already been placed since it had been first announced in 1984, but as the 1980s wound down and the economy cooled, the stakes edged higher.

Car production at Newport Pagnell had previously peaked at around 200 per year, but as the remnants of the V8 Vantage and Lagonda ranges faded away, the Virage was left as the sole hope for the future of the marque – and a workforce that had already been halved, down to a couple of hundred people.

The DB7 was still working its way through Ford’s corporate machinations between Jaguar and Aston Martin, from its XJ41 origins, and dealers weren’t convinced that this higher-volume sports car would be the saviour of the marque anyway.

The Aston Martin Virage 6.3 has smart polished walnut and rich Connolly leather

The question was how to build the Virage range in the mould of previous models; a supercharged halo car was pencilled in, but there was another opportunity closer to hand – from a short-lived racing programme.

Before former chairman Victor Gauntlett sold his 75% share of Aston Martin to Ford in 1987, he had commissioned Le Mans racing outfit Richard Stewart Williams to assemble a works Group C car.

While the resulting AMR1 only saw action in the 1989 World Sports Prototype Championship season – a pair ran mid-pack at the 24 Hours of Le Mans – before Ford pulled the plug, the whole operation had kept development of Aston’s V8 going at engine tuner Callaway Cars of Connecticut, USA.

The Aston Martin Virage 6.3’s Callaway-developed V8 engine was modified by Cosworth for road use

Back in Buckinghamshire, the Customer Service department had long been hoping to get its hands on a racing-spec engine.

It already had a reputation for supplying uprated suspension and braking kits to customers with deep pockets and heavy feet, so the desire for extra power in the latest Virage was keenly felt. Eventually, one arrived.

Service division manager David Eales, armed with the sole test vehicle, employed Cosworth to work up a road-friendly version of the 6.3-litre, 32-valve racing engine, with more aggressive profiles for the quad camshafts and 9.5:1 compression pistons.

‘Dig deeper into the throttle and the 6.3 rises out of its offbeat slumber and into a thunderous charge’

After six weeks of bench testing, power was up from the standard Virage’s 330bhp to 465bhp, assisted by Weber/Alpha sequential fuel injection, gas-flowed heads and specially designed exhaust catalysts.

The Newport Pagnell service team pored over J402 MNK and, putting the rest of the Virage 6.3 package together, would nickname the car ‘Minky’.

AP Racing was instructed to refine the AMR1’s huge brakes – 14in discs and four-pot calipers – for road use and compatibility with Bosch’s ABS set-up, while Goodyear was given similarly outlandish numbers – 285/45 R18 – in which to supply its Eagle-series tyres.

The Aston Martin Virage 6.3’s badge hints at its massive performance

But that was the easy bit; the challenge was managing the engine’s heat – already an issue in the standard Virage – and the extra stresses going through the chassis.

The accompanying bodykit, designed largely by eye and shaped by hand at the works, had taken extra airflow into account.

There was a larger front airdam and side vents similar to those seen on early renderings of the Virage, but the 6.3 still needed every cooling chance it could take.

There were even holes drilled into the scuttle to help dissipate the heat.

There’s a clunky action to the Aston Martin Virage 6.3’s five-speed manual gearbox

When it wasn’t burning bonnet linings or rear tyres, Minky was trying to dislocate its back axle.

Even replacing the standard rubber bushes for rose joints on an aluminium plate to support the A-frame only won half the battle; for the supercharged Vantage a couple of years later, engineers would use a four-link de Dion set-up.

Similar efforts went into reinforcing the steering rack, while the springs, dampers and geometry settings were revised at the factory.

Minky took on a variety of forms in those intense months: at one time it had a six-speed gearbox, and there were various axle ratios and different types of exhaust.

The Aston Martin Virage 6.3 wears 10.5in-wide OZ alloys with 285/45 R18 tyres

It was constantly in use, racking up miles on the road and at the track, living out the enthusiasm of the team behind it.

In 1991 it was ready for the most diehard Aston Martin customers to sample, at a club meeting at Goodwood race circuit. The difference against the standard Virage was immediately obvious.

Those on track in their own cars got a clear measure of the extra performance, while the view from the grandstand confirmed the accelerative drama as the wide-bodied Minky repeatedly launched out of the chicane.

The numbers sustained interest: 465bhp, 460lb ft, 0-100mph in 11.5 secs and a top speed of 175mph.

The Aston Martin Virage 6.3 prototype is responsive, balanced and light on its feet at speed

The £60,000 cost of the full conversion, on top of the standard £140,000 car, wouldn’t hold back the demand for what many owners saw as the car the Virage should have been in the first place.

As many as 60 cars are thought to have been converted, although this number includes those with bodykits, handling and brake packages fitted separately, without necessarily adding the 6.3-litre powerplant.

With each taking up to 12 weeks to complete, the project was a success not only by retaining customer interest, but also by simply keeping the staff active – and for dealers, too, who took the option to upgrade cars that had been sitting a little too idle on showroom floors.

The V8-engined Aston Martin feels effortless on the streets of Newport Pagnell

The fresh activity at Newport Pagnell and the flurry of press coverage – with Minky doing the road-test rounds – was also a key signal to the corporate eyes from Ford, which were looking at how to launch the new DB7 junior supercar for 1994.

The continued funding ensured the future of the supercharged Vantage, which was shown at the October 1992 Birmingham Motor Show ahead of a 1993 launch.

The factory was busy filling out the two-year waiting list for the convertible Volante, but the service department would find customers calling to book those in for conversions, too.

Around 60 Aston Martin Virages were converted to 6.3 specification

That the 6.3 was soon forgotten in the 186mph wheeltracks of the twin-supercharged Vantage and the chart-topping sales hit DB7 was really a measure of its success.

This niche project of the service department, never type-approved as an official model, was destined only to be a brief interlude between the original hopes of the Virage and the promise of the greater, Ford-funded future, when Aston Martin would produce thousands of cars each year, not hundreds.

On the precipice of a new era, Aston Martin’s fate could have easily tipped either way in the early 1990s.

Snug rear seats in the Aston Martin Virage 6.3

It was more than just a matter of money; if customers left disappointed and bored with the marque, there would be no one to buy future models.

As it was, many 6.3-litre cars would return to the works for subsequent upgrades, right up to the ultimate 600bhp V600 twin-supercharged specification made available in 1998.

Minky stayed in its 6.3-litre form, although it was later lifted to the 1993 specification, with 500bhp and 480lb ft.

It is an image of Aston Martin’s past, with a mechanical weightiness to its form that carries its flared arches and wide haunches comfortably.

‘When it wasn’t burning bonnet linings or rear tyres, Minky was trying to dislocate its back axle’

There is no suggestion of an apology for weighing the best part of two tonnes: if anything, it wears its heft with pride.

The waxy, rich scent of Connolly leather assaults you as you get near to the interior, continuing a theme of unashamed excess much as a five-star hotel pumping litres of eau de parfum through the air conditioning.

The acreage of leather facings is prodigious, interrupted occasionally by the glossy finish of polished walnut veneers and the incongruous appointment of digital switchgear and over-the-top entertainment systems – what rear passengers are meant to do with the Sony television is probably best left in the 1990s.

The Aston Martin Virage 6.3’s trip computer has tiny buttons

But, much like a gentleman’s club built into centuries-old architecture, the cabin is cramped and contorted, often inelegantly, around large fixed points.

A vast transmission tunnel dominates the centre stack, bulging out of the dash, while kneeroom appears sacrificed for the sake of an additional air vent.

The heavy steering and clutch, and the clunky throw of the five-speed ’box, make for an intimidating introduction to the rumbling 6.3 V8 ahead, encouraging slow, considered movements at the helm and lazy use of the generous low-down torque.

The period Nokia phone in this Aston Martin Virage 6.3 prototype

It is easy to see how an automatic 5.3-litre Virage would be a gratifying Continental cruiser, with initial responses quickly dismissing comparisons with the Porsche 928 and Ferrari 512TR.

Have faith and dig deeper into the throttle, however, and the 6.3 rises out of its offbeat slumber into a thunderous charge.

The torque is huge and instant; it endows the Virage with the sort of raw urgency that visibly lifts the bonnet above the horizon.

In a third cog that nudges 120mph, there is more than enough in-gear flexibility to reel in most corners that fall into view; autobahners can take fourth and follow the curvature of the earth.

There’s plenty of switchgear in the Aston Martin’s cabin

There is an inevitably long-striding attitude to how the Virage turns its 102.8in wheelbase, and a degree of lean to be expected of a car that rides so softly despite its beefed-up anti-roll bars.

But there is remarkable balance, almost agility, with the obstructive weight in the steering falling away with speed to be just sharp enough to match its willingness to change direction, and the finely weighted throttle delivering sensational response.

It is all, really, about that engine.

It pulls with seemingly limitless leverage in any gear, with a deep-chested bellow behind a soaring momentum that roars all the way to a 6500rpm cutout.

Keeping the Aston Martin Virage 6.3’s engine cool was an issue; engineers even drilled holes into the scuttle

Dramatic and tirelessly luxuriant, it is the epicentre of this car’s appeal; enough almost to forgive its interior compromises and dubious rationale as a supercar or GT.

The DB7 was easier to understand, and so was the Vanquish – the last Aston to be built at Newport Pagnell.

Today’s range aligns better than ever with markets that you can find on a graph and, more importantly, make profits with (although at Aston that still seems to be a challenge).

The Aston Martin Virage 6.3 has a soft set-up, which allows for some body roll

Yet the particular charm of the 6.3-litre Virage is found not on a graph but somewhere on Goodwood’s Lavant Straight, on the end of a phone or at lunch with an old customer, over British B-roads or on the autobahn, and in the talents still fostered by what is now Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell.

It is the product of those people who desperately wanted to continue making cars, and those who were just as enthusiastic as patrons to keep them being built.

Images: John Bradshaw

Thanks to: Aston Martin Works

Aston Martin Virage: in all shapes and sizes

Apparently keen to explore every niche of Aston Martin ownership, the Customer Service department built a number of unusual versions of the Virage.

A series of shooting brakes continued a marque trope, but now built in-house at Newport Pagnell.

It’s thought five three-doors were made from 1992, with another five or so five-door ‘Virage Lagonda’ wagons (above) in ’94 on a range of longer wheelbases.

A final two V8 ‘Sportsman’ three-doors were made a few years later.

There were four-door saloons, too, beginning with the 1994 Virage Lagonda 6.3 to match the five-door shooting brake, of which nine were made, including two with a longer 120.8in wheelbase.

In 1996, a new set of supercharged saloons was made, three of them wearing bespoke styling featuring rounded shoulderlines and a tapering boot (above).

A brace of slinky coupé designs continued the adventurism, one with echoes of the DB4GT Zagato (above) and the other looking like a less aggressive, smoothed-over Virage facelift; three of each were built.

Pininfarina was even called in for a couple of designs, with one looking like a scaled-up DB7, but the very few cars built have never been seen in public.

Factfile

Aston Martin Virage 6.3

Sold/number built 1992-’93/c60
Construction box-section steel chassis, aluminium body
Engine all-alloy, dohc-per-bank, 32-valve 6347cc V8, Weber-Alpha fuel injection
Max power 500bhp @ 6000rpm
Max torque 480lb ft @ 5800rpm
Transmission five-speed manual, RWD via limited-slip differential
Suspension independent, at front by wishbones rear A-frame, de Dion tube, radius arms, Watt linkage; coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar f/r
Steering power-assisted recirculating ball
Brakes vented, cross-drilled discs, with servo and ABS
Length 15ft 6½in (4737mm)
Width 6ft 1in (1854mm)
Height 4ft 4in (1321mm)
Wheelbase 8ft 6¾in (2610mm)
Weight 4341lb (1969kg)
0-60mph 5.1 secs
Top speed 174mph
Mpg 15
Price new £200,000
Price now £120,000*