Licence to thrill
Mark Palmer regrets that the Aston Martin impresses only men ‘Well done, mate, nice one,’ says a man on the way to work as my Aston Martin DB9 rolls off a giant transporter outside my house at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning.
‘Yeah,’ I reply, as if this little beauty is all my own work, a well-deserved, pre-bonus bonus designed to turn heads in the street and have the neighbours wondering what I really do for a living. It turns heads all right. Drive a machine like this and suddenly you’re a somebody.
Now I have never quite understood this car business. For me, watching an episode of Top Gear amounts to a nerve-wracking waste of time. That young man on the programme who nearly killed himself when his missile with wheels suffered a blow-out on a disused runway deserved at the very least to have been given three points on his licence. Instead, he’s become a celeb whom I saw recently on a weekend chat show and in the pages of Hello!
‘How familiar are you with driving a performance vehicle?’ says the driver of the trans porter, who’s wearing an Aston Martin shirt and an Aston Martin jacket. Well, I tell him, I’ve driven Mrs P’s Golf GTi without too much trouble. To which he replies that this beast might prove to be a different proposition altogether. And he’s right.
Originally, the idea was to test-drive the DB9’s successor, the DBS, which put in a powerful performance in the most recent James Bond movie, Casino Royale. You may remember the bit where Daniel Craig manages to make it do seven spectacular rolls as he desperately tries to avoid running over a pretty girl.
Perhaps, amid fears that I might do something similar, it was decided that the DB9 would give me the gen eral idea, a taste of what Aston describes as ‘Power, Beauty and Soul, with perfectly proportioned, flowing bodywork and cosset ing interiors that epitomise the marriage of form, function and materials’ — although I’m not sure why the letters P, B and S have to be in capitals.
All of this could be yours for around £120,000 if you go for the Coupe Touchtronic (sat navs and heated seats as standard), which compares favourably with 007’s DB9, which costs £160,000. But it’s still the kind of money that frightens me, especially when I sign my name and agree that the car is blemish-free at the point of delivery and must be returned in similar fashion on Monday morning. Fortunately, your foot has to be on the brake when starting up (sorry, firing) the engine, with which it roars into life. Problem is that in London, the car feels caged — like a greyhound in a bedsit longing to be released on to the track. But on the M25 it’s the king of the road. There are buttons to press, walnut facia trim and leather seats, snazzy radio/CD player, cruise control and no fewer than ten different seat adjustments, plus a device that massages the small of your back as you drive. You may be low down behind the wheel but it’s quite extraordinary how high you rise in people’s admiration — with one caveat. The people doing the admiring are all men. Not one woman is remotely impressed as I glide past, sometimes giving the revs a slight workout to attract attention. Men — and schoolboys. In fact, on an A road in Norfolk, we follow a school bus for a few miles. After five minutes, the boys in the back of the bus have written ‘cool car’ on a piece of cardboard and are holding it up for us to read.
On another occasion, I give way to a Lamborghini and he offers a knowing wink as if we’re competing in the how-to-get-noticed championships. We’re both professionals in this particular sport, both going about our business hoping to make the maximum impact. We are competitors but we respect each other’s wish to come out on top. There are also embarrassments along the way. Stopping at a petrol station near King’s Lynn, I try my hardest to look as if I know what I’m doing but can’t for the life of me find the lever that flicks open the fuel cap — and I’ve forgotten to bring the manual with me. The shame of it.
By the time Monday morning arrives, I’ve been pleasantly seduced. It’s my head that’s been turned. Knowing this car is sitting outside my house makes the onslaught of a new week far more acceptable — and confirms what a dangerous form of worship this is. My Aston Martin will be gone by noon. As love affairs go, it’s been fleeting and shallow. But as a one-night stand to give a superficial lift to the ego, it’s been more than satisfactory.
ASTON MARTIN www.astonmartin.com
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