Aston Martin AR1 review: a 99-unit Zagato barchetta you will likely never see in Bahrain, and why that is the point
3.3/5motorssouq Editorial Team
This is a collector's car in the fullest sense, not a used-car-market proposition. If one genuinely surfaces in Bahrain, treat it as a specialist acquisition: verify chassis number and provenance against Aston Martin's own records, budget for shipping-grade climate-controlled storage rather than daily use, and accept that parts and expertise will come from outside the region entirely.
Pros
- One of only 99 built — genuine, rare Zagato coachbuilt heritage
- Shares the DB7 V12 Vantage's proven 5.9-litre manual V12 driveline
- Serious collector currency in a market where rarity itself has value
- A completely different, more dramatic stance than any standard DB7
Cons
- Essentially unavailable through any normal Bahraini used-car channel
- No roof or windscreen frame makes it a fair-weather-only, low-mileage proposition here
- Parts and specialist expertise are not available anywhere in the Gulf region
- Insufficient confidently documented dimensional data to publish a full spec table
Named for its designer's initials — Andrea Zagato — and unveiled at the 2003 Geneva Motor Show, the AR1 took the DB7 Vantage's 5.9-litre naturally aspirated V12 and manual gearbox and wrapped them in a barchetta body with no roof, no windscreen frame and a dramatically lower, more aggressive stance than any standard DB7. Only 99 were built, and Aston Martin sold every one of them new exclusively to American buyers.
That makes the AR1 a genuinely different proposition from every other car in this Aston Martin range: it is not something anyone in Bahrain is realistically shopping for on the ordinary used-car market. It surfaces occasionally at international auction houses and in serious private collections, and the rare example that reaches the Gulf typically does so through a collector import rather than a dealer forecourt.
Why it still matters here
Bahrain's small but genuine classic and collector car community does occasionally acquire cars exactly like this — low-production Zagato specials have real currency among Gulf collectors who already own more common Astons and want something their peers do not have. For that buyer, the AR1's rarity is the entire appeal, not a drawback to be worked around.
What ownership would actually mean
With no roof, no windscreen frame and a barchetta body designed for occasional open-air use rather than daily driving, an AR1 in Bahrain's climate is fundamentally a fair-weather, low-mileage collector piece — ideally stored in climate-controlled conditions rather than exposed to summer heat and humidity for extended periods. Any mechanical work would need to go through specialists with direct DB7 V12 Vantage experience, since Aston's own service network has no meaningful stock of AR1-specific parts, and body panels are effectively irreplaceable outside a handful of restoration specialists worldwide.