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Well that is what I meant: where is this car now? ;-)
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-7651007/amp/Aston-Martin-launches-100k-SUPERBIKE-Brough-Superior.html
Thoughts? Can't decide if it's really ugly or really beautiful to be honest but still. An Aston Martin bike. Who could've seen this coming.
They actually weren't until a few years ago. Some rich enthusiast bought the rights to the name and started to produce new versions of the SS100.
The AM partnership is interesting because I'll bet that it means we'll see Bond or someone else in a Bond film on one of these bikes eventually. Like it or not the brands are just linked now, AM seem proud of their Bond heritage and EON seem happy to keep plugging them in every film (look at how many different Astons there are in NTTD). Probably not this one as it's a track only racer, but once they make a road legal bike together I'd expect it to pop up in a Bond film not long after.
https://news.sky.com/story/aston-martin-in-drive-for-bond-movie-boost-as-losses-mount-11856247
Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said it was clear the company was looking for some "Bond magic" to improve its fortunes.
He wrote: "Aston Martin has been the butt of a few bond-themed barbs after securing $150m in senior secured bonds at a chunky 12% earlier this year."
He said of the 25th edition of the Bond franchise: "It's a good chance to showcase the new DBS Superleggera and Valhalla. It needs all the help it can get."
Also the Aston Martin First SUV is underway this month to be unveiled
That first Aston Martin SUV has been revealed
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-la-motor-show/new-aston-martin-dbx-542bhp-suv-charged-reviving-firm
Well if suit James Bond I leave to Judge
It doesn't, but then again only a defender could do as an SUV for Bond. Lke the styling though.
The same question could be asked (and was) when Porsche first came out with the Cayenne, which was hdeous to boot. Sadly, it became a hit, and doubled the company's turnover.
Just watch and see how well they sell.
The truth is they should have done this 15 years ago.
I really don't see how Aston can survive as an independent company though. It just really doesn't make much sense these days. Aston seemed to blossom when they were a part of Ford, alongside Jaguar. They need a parent company with deep pockets. I used to think Tata would make sense but they're struggling now.
As I understand it they've got some Saoudi- or other investors behind them, or had. So those pockets weren't the problem. Brexit probably is though, and the fastly changing landscape of the auto market.
They're a publicly listed company, deep in debt, with a share price that has collapsed since the flotation. AM should be part of a large automotive conglomerate that values the brand and has the ability to invest for the long term.
Yes, but I regret them not continuing the cooperation with Red Bull. Let's see what AM will do in F1 with Stroll. They start with a not-so-good driver :-(
It’s a road car.
AM just seems in a weird place ATM. They are loosing money hand over fist, constantly being bailed out, yet spend precious resource on unneeded side projects, such as motorbikes and 'non-road legal DB5 continuation cars'. Surely it cant be that difficult - cut away the crap and just focus on having a solid core line of vehicles.
You're forgetting the speedboat.
I love the DB11, as it works far better 'in the flesh' than in pictures.
Easier said than done, clearly.
https://hypebeast.com/2020/8/aston-martin-bowmore-black-db5-1964-whisky-release
Why? It's a licensing deal, I can't think of an easier or more cost-effective way for them to make money. Isn't that what you want them to do?
If only this one came with machineguns: the Aston Martin DB5
By Jeremy Clarkson (Sunday Times, August 9)
I'm currently going through a phase of wanting a BMW 3.0 CSL or an old Mini Cooper. But I'm often distracted by the idea of a Lancia Fulvia or even a Montecarlo, or a Triumph TR6 or a "Big Healey" — the Austin-Healey 3000. What I really want, of course, is an Eagle Jaguar E-type, except I'm an Alfa Romeo man, really, so it's probably better I go for the 6C or a 1963 Giulia Spider or a Montreal. Actually, that's what I'd want most of all. Yes. Definitely. Unless the right BMW 3.0 CSL came along.
I guess we all do this — dream fanciful dreams about which of the eight billion classic cars out there we'd most like to own. It's impossible usually. Strangely, however, the number of cars from recent years that I'd want to buy is — and I'm going to work this out … er, hang on … four. A Bentley Flying Spur, an Alfa Romeo 4C, the new Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm and, er, I've forgotten what the fourth one was.
I wonder if there's been a period in my life when I've lusted after such a small number of modern cars. They're very good if you want your children to be safe and your geraniums to flourish, and they all have excellent connectivity and tremendous reliability, but hardly any of them cause you to get out and say: "Right. How much?" There's a sense that engineers are no longer following their hearts because they're too busy following the diktats of Greta Thunberg-obsessed governments. And it's the same story with the styling. The fins and the flared arches and the wings and the pop-up headlamps have all been swept away by the road safety lobby. And everything else that makes a petrolhead's heart sing has been stamped on by the jackboot of accountancy.
This doesn't mean my love of cars has diminished. It hasn't. But because there's no longer any nutrition if I suckle at the teat of innovation and newness, I've been driven into the history books. Or classic car magazines, as they are called. Here's the great peril, though. While it's fun to leaf through the ads for cars that were built before the upper atmosphere was a thing, and safety didn't matter, it is emphatically not fun to buy one.
You might think that a BMW 3.0 CSL drives in much the same way as a modern-day BMW M8. It doesn't. It drives in much the same way as your ride-on mower. If you can get it up to any kind of speed, you will find that it takes several years to slow down again. And when you get to a corner, you will notice, if you are paying attention, that you are being overtaken by your own tail-lights.
Traction control on those early lightweight BMW coupés was achieved by putting two bags of cement in the boot. There were no electronic driver aids of any kind. In fact, there was no electronic anything, really. Apart from a cigarette lighter. You certainly couldn't move the seats with a motor. You couldn't move the back rests at all.
You'd love to own a classic car and you'd love to arrive outside a Mr & Mrs Smith hotel in one. But you would hate driving it very much. However. What if you could buy a classic car that had been built yesterday morning? Tempting, eh? And it brings me neatly on to the new Aston Martin DB5. Yes. New. Fresh off the line in the Aston factory in Newport Pagnell. Except that the 25 so-called "continuation" cars that will be offered for sale are not standard DB5s. They're replicas of the car Sean Connery drove in Goldfinger and cost £3.3m each.
Designed with the help of the longtime 007 special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, they will be fitted with simulated twin machineguns that pop out from the front wings, battering rams, revolving numberplates, a bulletproof screen that rises from the back and a system for leaving an imitation oil slick in their wake. Oh and, yes, there will be an optional removable roof panel and a little red button under a flip-top gearlever. Although I'm told the passenger seat will not actually eject when you press it.
Aston Martin has done this sort of thing before. With the company finances in a parlous state, bosses decided that rather than spend money they didn't have on a new model, they would simply remake an old one. So they broke out the original drawings of the DB4 GT and set to work.
The idea is brilliant. You have a classic. A real one, made by the actual company using the original tools. But none of the parts has become baggy with age. Some bits, such as the brakes and the engine, have even been modernised a bit. And, what's more, at £1.5m it is about a million pounds cheaper than buying a version of the same car that was built 60 years ago.
I drove the finished product across France and Spain for an episode of The Grand Tour a few years ago, and at full chat on the Pau street circuit, and later on a beautiful stretch of road in the Pyrenees, it was sublime. It responded beautifully to hammer-time violence. Shock and awe woke it up. And when it was awake, that thing danced.
But at all other times it was as bolshie as a teenager. I still remember the noises the straight-cut gearbox made when I tried to swap cogs. I still remember how hot it was in the un-air-conditioned cockpit and how I couldn't even wind the windows down. I remember the whines and the squeaks and the roars. I remember going over the Pyrenees in a damp peasouper and thinking: "Yes. I am very miserable."
All of that came back to me last week when Aston Martin sent me a DB5. I assumed it would be the new continuation Golfinger version, but it was just a standard-issue early Sixties version with no machineguns. I went to the pub in it and, yes, it looked absolutely gorgeous sitting outside. I sat there thinking maybe I should have one instead of the 3.0 CSL.
But on the way home? Oh dear.
The DB5 wasn't even a good-handling car in the Sixties, and age hasn't improved things. It's not fast, either, and that's a nuisance, because every van driver sits right on its bumper, taking video footage with one hand and throwing litter out of the window with the other.
It's such a distraction that people lose the ability to think straight. Which means you're there, in that beautiful cabin, with its choke lever and its ashtray, absolutely terrified that some dozy ha'p'orth is going to crash into you.
Happily, this will not be an issue with the new 007 versions of the DB5, because the 25 lucky sods who get one will not be allowed to drive them on the road. Yes, that's right. You cough up £3.3m for a car that you cannot use on the public highway.
It must just sit on your drive. Which, of course, is where a classic car belongs. For getting about, you need a Volvo.
They have updated brakes ,engines,suspension etc and weapons...........
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/353108/bespoke-aston-martin-victor-pays-tribute-classic-v8-vantage-pictures
When you see it yes it base on the V8 Vantage what we saw in The Living Daylights & now in No time to Die driven by Daniel Craig. It powered with V12 engine. Let hope the next DB or DBS new design.