Brabus Built a 986-HP Tribute to Its Founder — Using an Aston Martin V12
A Tuner Builds a Tribute, Not Just a Tune
Brabus has unveiled the Bodo, a limited-run grand tourer built on the Aston Martin Vanquish, at this year's Fuori Concorso on the shores of Lake Como. The name and the number both carry weight: it's named after Bodo Buschmann, the company's founder, who passed away in 2018, and production is capped at exactly 77 units — a nod to Brabus's founding year of 1977, ahead of the company's 50th anniversary next year. This is less a routine tuning exercise than a deliberate piece of company history, timed and named to mark where Brabus came from as it approaches a major milestone.
Under the bodywork, Brabus has taken the Vanquish's 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 from its standard 824 hp and 737 lb-ft up to 986 hp and 885 lb-ft, enough to push the car to a claimed 224 mph. The body itself is substantially reworked rather than simply re-tuned — Brabus's own carbon-fibre panels, a reprofiled front end, and detailing throughout that marks it out clearly from the Aston Martin it's built on, without erasing what the donor car is. Pricing starts at €1 million, and Brabus says it will build only 10 to 15 cars a year, meaning the full run of 77 will take the better part of five years to complete — a production pace that is itself part of the exclusivity, not just the unit cap.
Why the Brabus-Aston Martin Combination Works for This Market
What makes the Bodo particularly relevant here is that it sits precisely at the intersection of two brands that already have a strong, established following in Dubai and the wider GCC. Aston Martin's V12 grand tourers have long appealed to collectors in this market who want genuine performance wrapped in something more restrained and elegant than a mid-engined supercar, while Brabus has built one of the most respected reputations globally among clients who want their car meaningfully differentiated from anything else on the road — not just faster, but visibly, deliberately its own thing. A car that legitimately combines both isn't a novelty pairing; it's exactly the kind of build that collectors here have been asking tuning houses to make for years.
The extremely limited run also matters in practical terms for anyone actually looking to own one: with only 10 to 15 units built annually worldwide, very few will make it to the region at all, and the ones that do will carry real scarcity value from day one rather than needing years to become genuinely rare. That's a very different proposition from a dealer-fitted styling package, and it's the kind of distinction that matters when a client is deciding what to actually commission or acquire versus what to pass on.
At House of Cars Dubai, we work with both Aston Martin and Brabus regularly, and builds like the Bodo are a useful reference point when we're advising clients on where a heavily modified car sits in terms of long-term value versus a factory-specification model — provenance and the story behind a build matter just as much as the horsepower figure. If you're weighing an Aston Martin V12 platform, a Brabus commission, or want a straight read on what a limited-run tuner build like this is really worth long-term, reach out via WhatsApp and we'll talk it through.