If you’re British, Aston Martin is pretty much the only supercar maker that hasn’t been gobbled up by an international conglomerate – even though it was a few years ago. You could say McLaren are viable for that title, but they only have the incredible MP4-12C in their model line-up, so for now, Aston wears the crown.

It’s not all rosy in the garden, though. Aston Martin has a problem, and rather oddly, it’s to do with its design principles. The majority of all manufacturers have a ‘design-face’, which effectively means all of the cars in their range look different but sort of the same. It helps consumers recognise the brand on the road and thus, theoretically, boosts sales. Aston does this, but to a whole new ridiculous level. There’s no denying the DB9 is one of the finest supercar designs ever made. When it was released in 2003, the world gasped and millions of hormonal teenage boys instantly forgot about Cheryl Cole and started looking at a new form of titillation – the DB9. It marked the first properly ‘new’ and ‘modern’ car from Aston, and absolutely nobody objected.

Then came then V8 Vantage; it looked as aggressive as a wart-hog, as fast as Linford Christie in slippers and as luxurious as Buckingham Palace – but more importantly, it looked pretty much the same as the DB9. We all let them off with that, though, as the V8 Vantage was considerably cheaper than its big GT brother, which meant the Aston-lifestyle could be bought into for 911 money. Read the rest of this entry »