What makes the perfect Grand Tourer? Over the years, many manufacturers have been answering this age-old question. For me, the perfect GT car should incorporate three essentials: a fatigue-eliminating interior, usable luggage space and dynamic performance which can adapt to whatever roads lay ahead.
The story goes, after an all-conquering 1988/89 F1 season for McLaren the solitary blot on an impeccable record that was the loss to Ferrari in Italy frustrated the Technical Director, Gordon Murray, into action. At the airport on the way home, Murray pitched a plan to make a road car to the boss, Ron Dennis.
The DBS is a car whose name leads you into the detail of its performance, intent and form. DBS were three letters first seen in 1967 in the William Towns designed original, created to replace the, by now, rather portly DB6.
The Concours of Elegance has announced the first of its features for 2019: a world-first display of one of every Aston Martin Zagato variant ever manufactured. From the 1960 DB4 GT Zagato, right through to the Vanquish Zagato Coupé, Volante, Speedster and Shooting Brake, guests will be able to browse 16 examples from one of the most famous creative partnerships in automotive history. The Aston Martin Zagato Celebratory Display is being curated by the Aston Martin Owners Club (AMOC), supported by Aston Martin Lagonda and Zagato. The display will include a number of extremely rare, as well as several unique, models, including one of the most famous racing Aston Martins…
You see it all the time in the market as people come up with more inventive ways to dance around the word Replica. A word that in my mind has always been treated a little unfairly and masked with such artistic wordplay as evocation, continuation or even tool room copy. I know that they all have subtle nuances which differentiate them but underneath they are all under the umbrella of Replica. Now we all know that every rule needs an exception and I think that that I may have found it. As soon as friends and new acquaintances learn of your passion for classic cars all kinds of tenuous conversation…
It all started as I was entering 3:15am into my alarm. Strangely, I was not worrying about the time but whether I would be able to get any sleep at all. The anticipation of test driving the new Aston Martin V12 Roadster, and of all places, in Monaco, made sleep a bit of a non-starter. It reminded me of the feeling I used to get on Christmas Eve as a nipper. Having secured a few hours’ sleep, it was off to the airport. It felt odd flying solo for a change; usually I have the Rugby boys in tow. It made a difference to know that I could sleep on…
A decade ago, if you wanted the sporty number that would turn heads and a model that could run the brood back and forth, you needed a garage that was big enough for two cars. We are, however, looking at a brand new world. A world of genuine four-seater sports cars with posing power to rival the best, and still enough room for the usual suspects. Introducing the Aston Martin Rapide S. Cue the genuflecting. I tend to affirm my own handle on new models by asking as many people as humanly possible what they think of a car. That is twice as hard when the model in question is…
Aston Martin has always held a special place in my heart. As a boy, I remember watching Timothy Dalton drive across Arctic tundra in the V8 Vantage Volante, being chased by the Ruskies. Times have changed, though, and the Iron Curtain has fallen. This issue, we couldn’t be further from tundra. This quarter, I convinced the ladies and gents at the hallowed Aston Martin Lagonda head office to loan us their new V12 DB9 Volante for an epic drive from Bristol to Antibes. The last time I drove across Europe was in a One Series BMW, following a team of 110 Defenders from Copenhagen to Monaco on the Gumball Rally….
I sat there, motionless, in my own deplorable car, watching the 2013 V8 Vantage get smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror. Perhaps if I careered into a post or a wall the team at Aston Martin might take pity on me and drive me to the hospital in it, giving me few more fleeting minutes of motoring nirvana. How do you go back to anything other than an Aston Martin? I should have been given some counselling by a tenured therapist on how to cope with my grief. Since its launch in 2006, the Vantage has had a number of tweaks and minor remodels. In 2009 we saw…