Aston Martins are sin, personified: everyone disapproves of them, but everyone wants one. That is why James Bond, a sex-addicted fictional civil servant, is suited to them – at least until he died in No Time to Die (clearly it was). Of course he died. He became emotionally available. If Bond isn’t ripping the knickers off death-stalked maidens, what is the point of him? Why is he feeding a child mango? Next! If you don’t want an Aston Martin, you are either dead like him or – more likely – you have never driven one.
Recite the technical specifications by all means and pretend this is why you bought it: numbers. That’s just the denial of the captured. We know why you want the car. For the British, there is no hotter marque – and there never will be. (The Italians, of course, have Ferrari: a car with the soul of an Italian man – an Italian man who speaks in roars.)
Aston Martins are for impressing the opposite sex (if rich, you should at least know what money is for), and, when I borrow one, I park up at Screwfix or any other builders’ merchant and measure the stares in yards. Even Charles III, happily married lover of birds and bees, is helpless before their all-consuming hotness: his DB6 Volante (named for Dave Brown, maker of tractors and saviour of the brand postwar) runs on surplus white wine and whey – and that’s a contortion I respect. I would do the same. I would do anything.
I have driven the DB11 and the DBS Superleggera – both grand tourers – and the Vantage, which is a sports car. All are expensive, exquisite and fast; all are covetable. (Do not talk to me about Hondas in July. Reliable, yes – like a boring husband. So reliable.) But what to do if you are scared of lorries, as I am, and need 491 litres of boot space? (These cars are, explicitly, for running away into the night.) Or just want to addle a Range Rover? (Great cars – but their owners are dreadful. One of the essential joys of a luxury SUV is taunting Range Rover drivers: go directly to the Cotswolds and tailgate them while cackling. Have you ever seen a six-foot, two-inch high car sulk? Just go to Daylesford Organic in Moreton-in-Marsh. It’s worth your time.)
You turn to the DBX707, the Aston Martin SUV – currently the Formula One medical car – which cracks me up. The DBX707 will rescue you from yourself. The DBX is five years old and charming: it is built in St Athan, Wales, and was designed to penetrate markets that want big cars for big men with big fears – all of it understandable. That is: America, the Middle East and China. It was expected to fail – Aston Martin, which is all romance, does not have the deep pockets of other marques; it is risky in every way – but it didn’t.
One of the essential joys of a luxury SUV is taunting Range Rover drivers: go directly to the Cotswolds and tailgate them while cackling
Revenues quadrupled, and it outsells all Aston Martins now, about which I feel complex. There is almost nothing – legal or illegal – I wouldn’t do for a baby blue Vantage Roadster to make a fool of myself in. (Midlife crises are not gender-specific.) It is beautiful: taller than a Range Rover; vast wheels; customisable (a pet pack to protect the car from your dog; a snow pack, which is basically chains).
Then came the DBX707, which tweaked the four-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine to give 697 bhp or 707PS – translated into woman as: you are flying faster than a Lamborghini Urus but earthbound, and nothing feels better, ever. It does 0 to 60 in 3.1 seconds, has a top speed of 193 mph, weighs 2.245 tonnes and costs £205,000 and more. (There is a still newer, faster one: the DBX S.)
All romance, as I said. If you drive on British roads, you get delight – except from Range Rover drivers – as if the DBX707 is a child the nation loved got bigger. (It is no coincidence they have the King’s warrant. Now he is a romantic.) There are few – well, no – luxury goods that do not incite hatred in bystanders at first glance. All this it does while howling, as an Aston Martin does – and should – while providing the exquisite interior comfort of the fantasy interstellar hotel. Modern luxury cars are ridiculous: they tell me this is the end of time. Ask not for whom it howls. It howls for thee.
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