Over the past two weeks we have had two absolutely stunning cars been announced to the automotive purchasing public.  Both of which are modern interpretations of cars that were previously on the road in the 1960’s.  One of them however is to be produced on an extremely limited run (50 Units) while the other has been created to be sold to just about every Beverly Hills house wife who can still form a smile or even blink.  If you haven’t already guessed the two cars in question would be the 2011 Aston Martin V12 Zagato and the 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster.

As the title suggests I think it is a toss-up in trying to decide which on is better looking.  I would have to say the same holds true if you are trying to see which one has the better sounding engine.  The big Benz has the same engine as its hardtop brethren, the now world famous 6.2-liter V8 pumping out an amazing 563 hp and 479 ft of torque.  On the other hand the Zagato is employing its stalemates’ (DB9/DBS) 6.0-liter V12 tuned to a mere 510 hp and 420 lb.

Where the two can easily be separated would have to be in the manner that they were designed, and in fairness to the Zagato the SLS Roadster had the easy way out in this category.  In reality all the Mercedes camp had to do was take near perfect SLS AMG and chop off the roof.  The bonus was they then had the perfect excuse to ditch the gimmicky gull wing doors.  The other advantage was that this roaster should require less stiffening as it already has beefed up sills which result in an out of the box strong connection linking the front of the car to its rear.  This bit of science you can thank the seagull wings on the fixed roof version as they forced the original design to over engineer the cars chassis right out of the gate.  All of the other components have been carried over from the SLS AMG with the exception of the soft top folding roof.  A fabric roof was chosen over a folding metal hard top to ensure that the cars center of gravity was kept as low as possible.

The Zagato on the other hand has a handcrafted aluminum body draped over a V12 Vantage chassis.  The result is a traditional beautiful Aston Martin dialed up to 12, no make that 15 on the good looks scale.  The designers choose right from the beginning of the project to skip the use of machines in the manufacturing process and designed the creation of each body panel to be done with the use of an English Wheel and body bucks.  In fact the Zagato’s creators say that a metal stamping machine would not even have been capable of creating the majority of the body panels.  Case in point the ever so subtle double bubble roof, and don’t be afraid to let your eye continue along that line to those tail lights and exhaust exits.  Very Enzo a la steroids if you ask me.

If it is up to me the Aston Martin V12 Zagato gets the top billing in this article however if you think about it long enough it really isn’t a fair fight.  The custom design house (Zagato) should always be sexier than a tuning division (AMG).  Then factor in that hand crafted body panels will always look better then ones created by a machine and a limited production run should always be more cutting edge then a mass produced vehicle.

So in this face off the Zagato gets more votes and wins or in this case it gets my vote which makes it the Sexiest car produced so far in 2011.

Whatever you do don’t stop at the images below, try your best co continue to the very bottom where you will find a video of a new Aston Martin V12 Vantage Zagato filmed revving at the 2011 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.

First Place:

The Current Title Holder of Sexiest Car of 2011.

And now turn on your speakers and bring the noise.