Behold the Thunderbolt, an Aston Martin Vanquish Customized by Henrik Fisker

Behold the Thunderbolt, an Aston Martin Vanquish Customized by Henrik Fisker

At the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance (which is sort of an East Coast riposte to California’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance), designer Henrik Fisker and California tuning company Galpin Auto Sports unveiled the Thunderbolt, a custom based on the Aston Martin Vanquish.

Fisker and Galpin have teamed up before, to create the 725-hp Rocket, which was based on the Ford Mustang and revealed at the L.A. show last fall. In creating the Thunderbolt, Fisker—who, as the one-time design director of Aston Martin, should well know his way around its cars—laid on new, carbon-fiber bodywork.

Compared with the Vanquish, the Thunderbolt is sculpted with more creases, and it features a wraparound rear window and a glass roof. The Thunderbolt squats on a lowered suspension and rolls on 21-inch wheels. The customized interior is turned out in Natuzzi leather and incorporates an 11.6-inch Panasonic curved control screen and a Maurice Lacroix Skeleton dash clock. A built-in holder fashioned from leather cradles two wine bottles, so the Thunderbolt driver can bring the party.

Although it is based on a V-12–powered Vanquish, the Thunderbolt is not an Aston Martin project. Its makers point out that “the prototype unveiled at Amelia Island is a design study only.” Will it be built? “There will be no commercialization of the prototype shown at Amelia,” comes the answer.