I once read that after watching a James Bond film men speed in their Honda Civics: they might do 35 mph in a built-up area. If this is so, it is due to the Aston Martin Bond has driven since 1964 (the DB5 in Goldfinger, a man with ‘a cold finger’). The DB5 has appeared in six Bond films so far; and some kind of Aston Martin has appeared in twelve Bond films. Is it, I wonder, contemplating Bond’s internal wasteland of sex addiction, murder and laundry, the only real home he ever had? Is it his wife? When the DB5 was revealed in Skyfall, waiting calmly in a garage, it seemed it was. The face of Bond – he is named after an ornithologist – may change. You may remember that his creator Ian Fleming was a foreign editor who liked to spank his wife; and who gets that sexually excited in a Sunday broadsheet office? You may guess that civil servants don’t live like that. The only thing you don’t need to suspend disbelief about in Bond films – he is now, what, 100 years old? – is the car / wife and, in homage to this there are four separate Aston Martins in the 25th Bond film No Time to Die, which is out this month.
There is the DB5, of course; the V8; the DBS Superleggera and the superbly named Valhalla. These cars are hot drugs; that they essentially emerged from a tractor builder called Dave Brown, one of Aston Martin’s many saviours, feels peculiarly special. They will provide a lot of hot aluminium and a lot of minor speeding offences. People say Bond 25 will bomb due to pandemic: that its delay of more than a year is a kind of cowardice that can be laid at Bond’s door. I doubt it: you can’t shoot an airborne virus with a machine gun, or land on it using a parachute painted with a Union flag. (I know some people think you can, and they are stupid). He is well out of Covid-19.
I am disappointed that Bond will not drive the DBX: Aston Martin’s first SUV. It is called ‘an SUV with the soul of a sports car’ – we will see – because everyone wants everything these days. They want a dog that looks like a cat and a sandwich you can drink from a chalice. People are impossible. I have always assumed that, should freelance journalism pay better, I would have a Superleggera, a Range Rover (or maybe a G-Wagon) and a VW Golf. According to the super brands though, I will not need them all; I can have everything in one car: it’s thrifty. Perhaps Bond will not need the DBX in No Time to Die – though he needs the DB5, the V8, the DBS Superleggera and the Valhalla. Is he not doing the school run or the big shop? Is it no time for the big shop? Or the dry cleaners?
It’s a shame because the DBX is glorious and is still the only Aston Martin you can flee from cold-fingered villains in with a wife, two children, and a baby; but you can get baby seats in sports cars now. Aston Martin divined why men sold their sports cars on marriage and fixed it. You can legally get two babies in a Superleggera; but adults can’t sit in the back of the sportscar. It’s a prayer; a myth; a cracked desire.
I drive the DBX across the southern counties of England with ecstasy hanging on the horizon somewhere beyond words. Have you ever tried to write down a drug dream? It is five metres long and two metres tall. It is not boxy but sleek with long lines and slender headlights. The engine is a 4.0-litre V8 and howls, pleasingly at the sky. The weight is two tonnes – or just over – the top speed is a near ludicrous 181mph and 0-62mpg is done in 4.5 seconds which is, in this dreamland, not as fast as some but plenty fast enough. (Even on the track at Goodwood, accompanied by a racing driver, I would not get the Bentley GT over 99mph). There is a panoramic roof, and it seats five, which is not something you can say about a DB5. It sells for £160,000 and upwards. Don’t ask about the fuel economy. He wouldn’t.
Does it feel, you may ask, like an Aston Martin? That is the question from Aston Martin addicts. Bystanders think so, of course: you get the usual open mouths and, sometimes, the applause that comes with car-themed patriotism.
I could say that the Rolls Royce Cullinan – at twice the price – is larger and more luxurious (but it is a Rolls Royce, that is why you pay £300,000 for a car) and that the Bentley Bentayga feels more solid. (The Bentley is the Queen’s car of course; the Aston Martin is the prince’s). But they are not as thrilling to drive; they are not Aston Martins. Cars do not have souls – except perhaps some Ferraris – but we give them our own. You want what you want. If I had the choice of only one Aston Martin – and I would take them all – I would take the Superleggera, the grand tourer (or GT) because it has more frontage than the Kremlin and it barks like a dog. But if you want an SUV associated with British daring and a heartsick hero, take this one.
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