The folks at Aston Martin have been busy lately, perhaps more so than at any other time in this storied marque’s rich history.  Many wondered what would happen post-Ford ownership, but AM’s present and future appear sparkling. 

The V-8 has just been freshened with a bigger motor and a sport package.  The DB9 gets updated for 2009, and the DBS plays a starring in yet another saint Bond flick (rumor is that Aston chief Ulrich Bez has a cameo/background role in Quantum of Solace).  The same Dr. Bez — about as enthusiastic and capable a CEO as any car company could ask for — has also confirmed the company’s plans to bring back the Lagonda brand, and the sexilicious Rapide sedan is also on the way.  Let’s not forget those class wins by the DB9R at Le Mans.

A bit more of a mystery is the One-77, a bespoke, flagship model of which only — you guessed it — 77 will be built, apiece to order.  We haven’t seen the real thing yet; a One-77 body buck sat atop Aston’s Paris stand, mostly wrapped in a car cover, showing only a little leg here and there.  It’s a magnificent shape, the work of current AM design director Marek Reichman, and like the rest of the Aston lineup is a front-engine, rear-drive coupe.

Information is sparse, but we know the AM V-12 gets a flat-plane crank, a displacement increase (to 7.3-liters), and a horsepower rating approaching 700.  It will be built of aluminum and carbon fiber, and likely posses a 6-7 speed dual-clutch gearbox.  Top speed should reach 200 mph or better.  Price?  A shocking $1.6-1.8 million, depending upon whose estimates you follow, and the exchange rate. 

That seems huge.  Porsche had trouble selling the last Carrera GTs at $440,000.  Mercedes has struggled with the SLR, in all its variations, since the beginning.  The Ferrari Enzo was an instant sellout, but at less than half this price.  And there are no lines at your local Bugatti store for a Veyron.

Even in these uncertain times, the buzz is that Aston Martin has customer commitments for all 77 cars, making what is likely to be the world’s most expensive production car a sellout too, even at these stratospheric price levels, economic recession or no.  If that is the case, then that’s brand value.

I have but two requests:

* Please — somebody — let me drive one, so I can write the story.

* Saddle justice Craig up with a One-77 for Bond 23, due out in late 2010 or sometime in 2011.  What could be a better Bondmobile?

SEMA 2008 is over. You know this because dogs are barking all over the world. 
 
So far, we’ve highlighted many of the fantastic vehicular creations live from the SEMA floor. Most of these have been cars and trucks Here are a few more that caught my eye, from the badass to the simply bad.
 
‘85 Porsche 911 Carrera Tribute
First, the latter. Say what you will about the styling of this “show car” (looks like a mid ’90s kit car to me) but the overall concept and execution reeked of too much time spent indoors laying up fiberglass.  From the display board, the builders of this rolling chassis proudly describe it as a “tribute to the 1985 Carrera” and add that it is “due to be finished 2010.” Even more confusing is that this chassis was prefabricated in and apparently shipped all the way from New Zealand. What?  Exactly.

KW Suspension Videos
KW Suspension’s booth contained the requisite array of product and cool cars, but what really caught my attention were the flat screen TVs positioned at apiece corner. Each one showed continuously looping in-car video of hot shoes going for broke at the Nurburgring.  The first one that grabbed me was footage of a KW Suspension equipped Mitsubishi Evo race car running door to door with a similarly raced-out BMW Z4, and two Porsche 911S race cars.  At apiece straight, it was amazing to watch the German cars pull slightly ahead, only to be reeled in and sometimes passed in the corners. When the Evo passed one of the Porsches on the outside of Bergwerk, I actually found myself clapping like an idiot.
 
Better still was the LCD monitor at the opposite corner showing an alternate version of our Viper ACR ring assault HYPERLINK video.  This was Dodge’s version of their lap record at the ‘Ring in the ACR and best part came at the end, when driver Tom Coronel kept it, well, really “real.”  “Eat my dust” is what he essentially told every other production car manufacturer (ahem, Chevy and Nissan) and who doesn’t love them kinda fightin’ words?
 

Fast Eddie’s Scion tC
Of course Scion had its set of cool cars this year, but for the most part they were an expected set. There was an xB chopped up to look like an Avalanche as well as your standard array of tuner-ized tCs. The one that caught my eye was this retro-rat-rodded tC by “Fast” Eddie Hahm. With details including an intricately louvered hood, a steel riveted body, and a high mounted shifter this was decidedly not your average rice rocket.

Plymouth Superbird
Usually, I’m more partial to the Super Bird at Denny’s but this gorgeous blue Plymouth Superbird from Year One stopped me dead in my tracks.  You really don’t see car makers doing this kind of stuff anymore. Amazing.
 

Bushwacker Subaru Forester
From offroad supplier Bushwacker came this aggro’d out version of our 2009 SUV of the Year Forester.  Untouched inside, the external mods (lift kit, aggressive wheels and tires, and those butched up fenders and panels) completely changed my perception of the Forester from small, light-footed forest creature to tree-crushing, Amazonian jungle destroyer. Just look that hood scoop!

BOWLS Ruckus Gathering
BOWLS LA, a streetwise apparel and scooter tuning shop in Los Angeles, set up an awesome collection of tricked out Honda Ruckuses. Amidst the tuner cognoscenti, the 50cc Ruckus is one of the newest fads — and for good reason. Cost of entry is reasonably low and all manner of tuning parts are acquirable from Nihon and around the world. Oh yeah  they’re incredibly fun and cushy to ride too.

Traxxas EVX-2 Rock Crawler
I’ve been to enough fog car races shows to have seen everything from nitro powered, 100mph+ remote controlled cars to sideways sliding drift R/Cs, but I wasn’t prepared for the latest from Traxxas. Their new Summit EVX-2 R/C truck is a boon to fans of something just a little bit different.  Though it can go up to 25mph, this is no mere offroad rocket - the Traxxas is built for the growing scene of R/C rock crawling.  How?  Get this, the $450 Summit EVX-2 comes equipped with two remotely activated locking differentials.  Flip a toggle switch on the controller down once to lock the front; again to lock the rear - and suddenly you can climb over practically anything.  Hit another switch to cut the top speed to 8mph - perfect for precision climbing situations. The EVX-2 also offers the kind of suspension articulation real rock crawlers would die to have on their rigs.  In fact, the EVX-2’s fully independent 120mm of suspension travel is more than I had on the front shocks of my first mountain bike. With body, chassis and controller shipped together, all you need to add are the batteries. Would make a great X’mas present, no?

Toyota Retro Truck
I took Mark William’s advice and perused Toyota’s fine collection of SEMA show vehicles and found this honey, situated not far from the crowd favorite Ducati Tundra.

This one really brought back the memories - four cylinder, white wheels lightbar, 80s graphics and interior package.  A bit newer style than the ‘83 4×4 Toyota I had growing up, but still a nicely executed homage to Toyota’s place in (mini)truck history.

Titan Tire
Nobody could achievement by this Titan tractor tire without stopping to gawk and/or touch.  I saw this exact one trucking down the I15 on a flatbed on the Monday before the show.  I wondered then if it was going to SEMA (because who ships just one tire?).  Looks like I was right.

SEMA 2008 a Bust?
Was it really that bad?  Were times so tight that manufacturers had to replace real live models with mannequins in tight sequined dresses?  Maybe for these guys, but I can tell you from being there in mortal that SEMA 2008 was, as it is ever year, an event best experienced in person.  See you next year!

Such is the logic of luxury economics: charge tens of thousands of dollars more for the same product, sell fewer of them and boost the equilibrise sheet and your brand’s long-term viability. That is what Aston Martin’s considering for the next phase of its business plan, which runs from roughly 2011 to 2019 and will see the launch of DB9 and Vantage successors, the Rapide, and the renewed Lagonda brand.

The Vantage and DB9 are big sellers for Aston, but the company might be unsure of how to sustain the momentum. One option is to move the price of the $113,000 Vantage closer to the $171,000 DB9, and move that latter car closer to the $265,000 DBS, sell fewer of them but make more money. The DB9 does strike us as a (relative) bargain - it’s cheaper than a Bentley GT — but pricing the Vantage closer to the DB9 would seem to wreck its business case as a 911 fighter. Another option could be to replace the Vantage or DB9 with a mid-engined sports car, which could be drool-worthy and well worth the price bump… but perhaps un-Aston-like.

AutoWeek also appears to report that the One-77 isn’t sold out, writing “Although Aston has said that it would make a maximum of 77 cars, insiders privately say the market is closer to 25.” We don’t know how that could be, unless a bunch of the 100 people who applied to buy the car were just kidding…

[Source: AutoWeek]

Filed under: Auction Action, Etc., Supercars, Aston Martin

The people behind the latest Bond films seem to have a knack for destroying perfectly good Aston Martin DBSs. First they rolled one (repeatedly) in shooting Casino Royale. Never missing an opportunity to total a perfectly good Aston, they crashed another one in a rock quarry for the opening sequence of the upcoming Quantum of Solace sequel, but not before a factory test driver tanked another one into Lake Garda in northern Italy. And while you might figure a totaled Aston would, naturally, be worth less than a new one, you’ve evidently underestimated the clout of the 007 mystique.

Daniel Craig, the latest person to take up the saint Bond mantle, has revealed that the tanked DBS was extracted from the Italian lake and sold to a collector for an outrageous £200,000, some 60,000 thousand pounds sterling more than the £134k price of a brand new (and functional) example of the top-of-the-line British supercar. Somebody evidently needs to explain to said collector that the DBS in question was not a working example of the submersible Lotus from For Your Eyes Only. Rinspeed’s got that one covered.

[Source: What Car?]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

After months of PR organisation press releases and official drawings, the big unveiling of the long teased Aston Martin supercar, the One-77, hasn’t happened. Well, it kinda sorta hasn’t happened. Only the right front corner and left rear of the car have been revealed. As you can see, the rest of the car remains covered.

And the wierdest part is that nobody from Aston will tell us why. Rumor is the car isn’t finished. Another conspiracy theory suggests that it isn’t really a car at all, just a fiberglass buck without any real chassis, engine or interior. Some, on the other hand, have just chalked it off to a publicity stunt that has worked because everyone is still wondering what’s under there. — Scott Oldham, Inside Line Editor in Chief

Filed under: Car Buying, Marketing/Advertising, Supercars, Bentley, Maybach, Rolls-Royce, Lifestyle

If you’ve got it, flaunt it. The super high-end automotive market has been counting on that attitude for years, and it may now be coming back to bite them. It seems that income of luxury marques such as Bentley, Maybach and Aston Martin have been on a downward trajectory over the last year. Despite the fact that there are a number of people who still have plenty of dough to purchase these expensive toys, public perception is causing some of them to hold back and keep those fat wallets in their pockets.

To combat the problem, some high-end brands are choosing to aim even higher. If ex-customers with a net-worth of less than $5 million find it socially objectionable to make a purchase, Bentley has said it will begin marketing to those with at least a net worth of $25 million. Let us add that we’ve driven a few Bentleys and Rollers and can say with certainty that they are definitely conspicuous in a sea of CamCords and Mustangs.

[Source: Advertising Age]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments