The one-off Aston Martin Bulldog has finally cracked the 200-mph mark, more than four decades after Aston Martin attempted but failed the same feat.
At an attempt held on Tuesday at a former airforce base in Campbeltown, U.K., racing driver Darren Turner took the car to a top speed of 205.4 mph.
The Bulldog is a mid-engine supercar with gullwing doors that Aston Martin designed in 1977 to be the world’s fastest production car. Testing that took place in 1979 at the MIRA test track in the U.K. saw the car reach 191 mph, falling well short of Aston Martin’s original target of 237 mph.
Aston Martin had planned to build a handful of customer examples, though the plug was ultimately pulled on the project due to cost reasons and no further development took place. The sole prototype was later sold.
Aston Martin Bulldog concept
Aston Martin at the time was owned by American businessmen Peter Sprague and George Minden. They were also responsible for the equally wedge-like Lagonda sedan, which unlike the Bulldog actually saw a small production run.
The Bulldog features a turbocharged 5.3-liter V-8 estimated to be delivering between 600 and 700 hp, which was a crazy figure at the time of the car’s development.
The car’s current owner, Phillip Sarofim, commissioned a full restoration to get it ready for its top speed run, which took 18 months and was handled by the U.K.’s Classic Motor Cars.
