4trac:
vantagesc:

 I never understood why the Vantage / DB9 / Vanquish era cars were so heavy despite using the VH platform (which presumably uses technology developed by Lotus).  Maybe the engines are heavy?

AM were one of the first to embrace an aluminium platform, but it is now about 14 years old - at the time of development they may not have had the advanced materials and design knowledge to optimize for the lightest weight.  

I think that when AM developed the VH aluminium platform the stress was placed primarily on the feasibility of building different model variants using the same chassis concept and tooling, rather than on absolute weight optimisation. 
AM's small production runs would rule out the use of conventional 3-dimensional pressed metal panels due to the high tooling costs.


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fritz