Aston Martin DB5 left me shaken, not stirred
The Aston Martin DB5 left me shaken, not stirred.
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 about which classic cars we’d most like to own. 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... three. A Bentley Flying Spur, an Alfa Romeo 4C, and the new Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm.
Modern cars are very good if you want your children to be safe, and they all have excellent connectivity and reliability, but hardly any of them cause you to get out and say: “Right. How much?” 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 and 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 that brings me neatly on to the new Aston Martin DB5. Yes. New. Fresh off the line in the Aston factory in Newport Pagnell, England. Except that this limited run of 25 so-called “Goldfinger Continuation” cars are not standard DB5s. They’re replicas of the car Sean Connery drove in Goldfinger and cost $6m each. Designed with the help of veteran 007 special effects guy Chris Corbould, they will be fitted with simulated twin machineguns that pop out from the front wings, 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. A few years ago it decided that rather than spending money it didn’t have on a new model, it would simply remake an old one. So it 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, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a 60-year-old original model. I drove the finished product, the DB4 GT Continuation, across France and Spain for an episode of The Grand Tour, 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 remember the awful noises the straight-cut gearbox made, and how hot it was in the unairconditioned cockpit. I remember the whines and the squeaks and the roars. I remember going over the Pyrenees in a damp fog and being very miserable.
All of that came back to me last week when Aston Martin sent me a DB5. I assumed it would be a Goldfinger Continuation model, but it was just a standard-issue ’60s 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 an agile car in the ’60s, and age hasn’t improved things. It’s not fast, either, and that’s a nuisance, because every van driver will sit right on your bumper, taking video footage with one hand. 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 won’t be an issue with the Goldfinger Continuation model, 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 $6 million for a car that you cannot use on the public highway. It must just sit in your garage. Which, of course, is where a classic car belongs. For getting about, you need a Volvo.
Aston Martin DB5(1963-65)
Engine: 4-litre, 6 cylinders, petrol (210kW/379Nm)
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Rating: ★★★
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