In automotive terms, the name ‘Octavia’ most likely conjures up images of a pleasant, sensible Skoda. That might change next week, though, because it’s also the name US-based custom car builder Ringbrothers is giving to its next build.
If you’re familiar with the Wisconsin-based outfit, it’ll likely be for their many deeply impressive custom muscle car builds, like last year’s 1246bhp 1987 Buick Grand National. The source material for this project, though, is very different: it’s an Aston Martin DBS.
Ringbrothers Octavia teaser
Not the DBS that recently went out of production, nor the DB9-based one from the late noughties, but a 1971 example of the first car to wear the name. It was a boxy coupe powered by either a straight-six or V8, and is perhaps best remembered for starring in George Lazenby’s sole outing as James Bond, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Ringbrothers’ take on the car, though, throws pretty much all of that away. Octavia is set to get a full carbon fibre body, widened to the tune of 250mm at the rear and 200mm at the front. It cradles an 805bhp supercharged V8, which sends that power to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual.
Ringbrothers Octavia teaser
We don’t know much else about the project just yet, but Ringbrothers says over 12,000 combined hours of work have been poured into it.
Although those brawny, boxy V8-powered ’70s Astons are arguably Britain’s own homegrown muscle cars, Octavia’s certainly set to be a bit of a change from the classic American iron that Ringbrothers tends to stuff full of huge amounts of power. As a result, it’s being revealed in an appropriately highfalutin setting: the lawns of The Quail concours, the crown jewel of Monterey Car Week. We’ll see it in full, and get a rundown on the spec, on 15 August.
