Dr Ulrich Bez had taken over as Aston Martin CEO during the Summer of 2000 and immediately postponed the V12 Vanquish launch as he was unhappy with certain aspects of the project, especially the interior which had air vents easily identified as coming from the Ford Ka, least expensive car in the Ford range. 

The cutaway car below was built to show the new method of construction, extruded and bonded aluminium sections, together with carbon fibre sections. This cutaway has recently been purchased by the Aston Martin Heritage Trust for display at their headquarters in Oxfordshire.

In the gallery below there are some photographs of the pre-production car (50PP10) taken at the Geneva Salon in 2001. This actual car can now be seen at the British Motor Heritage Museum at Gaydon as part of their collection.

Other pre-production cars were given to Eon, makers of the James Bond films for conversion to special effects cars for the film, Die Another Day. Another pair were sent to two different Italian coachbuilders, Zagato and Bertone, to create the unique Roadster and Jet 2 respectivly.