ICONIC LUXURY British sports cars
introduction
Aston Martin is a British independent manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. It was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Steered from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated with expensive grand touring cars in the 1950s and 1960s, and with the fictional character James Bond following his use of a DB5 model in the 1964 film Goldfinger. Their sports cars are regarded as a British cultural icon. It has over 150 car dealerships in over 50 countries on six continents, making them a global automobile brand. In 2003 it received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade.
Aston Martin Dubai is an authorised and official Aston Martin dealership dedicated to offering an unrivalled quality of service and expertise. We are committed to supporting all your Aston Martin needs and pride ourselves on providing an outstanding and personalised service whether you have a sales, aftersales or ownership requirement.
The Burj Al Arab (Arabic: برج العرب, Tower of the Arabs) is a luxurious 5 star hotel located in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. One of the tallest hotels in the world, it is the seventh tallest, although 39% of its total height is made up of non-occupiable space. Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 280m from Jumeirah Beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. The shape of the structure is designed to resemble the sail of a ship. It has a helipad near the roof at a height of 210m above ground.
Scope of Work
Today’s audacious event features the airlift of Aston Martin’s ultimate GT, the Vanquish, onto the helipad at the iconic hotel in front of some of the region’s most important dignitaries. It’s the first time a car has been placed onto the helipad, which sits 1,000ft above the ground at the top of the sail-shaped building.
Challenges
In reality this Aston Martin Vanquish had been stripped off its engine including everything else what was not required so to perfectly balance the car’s weight. Then it was fixed and strapped onto a rig which was hooked up to a powerful helicopter. You can only imagine what kind of challenges were coming its way towards the pilot. Multiple test runs had been performed and a clear NO GO wind speed set to the project. Besides the many recces I did for my team of 7x photographers there were plenty of challenges to overcome. Individual briefings, different contact person, risk assessments, access, logistics, timing, delivery deadlines since it was for a global press release etc. My shoot location was right on top of the helipad (You might spot me in the video clip) during the chopper delivered the Aston Martin and like everyone else on the platform I had to wear body hardness that was anchored to the helipad ground hooks because of the dangerous drag the helicopter ground effect creates.
RIP: Willy Lunardi – owner of Willow Events who managed this gig.