Aston Martin Vantage
Jeremy Clarkson
Over the years, we’ve been told by solemn-faced experts that life as we know it is about to end. Strange to report, then, that we’ve managed to survive communism, particle accelerators, fascism, asteroids, Cuba, bird flu, global warming, terrorism, nuclear war, various tsunamis and Aids, and now we are going to be finished off by Fannie Mae.
I don’t even know what Fannie Mae is. Apparently, it’s not a bank and it’s not a building society, but it seems to have been buying mortgages and debts from various institutions. And then, one day, it appears to have woken up and thought: “Oops.” Quite how it was allowed to get in this mess, I’m not sure. Did nobody think it odd that a mysterious organisation was stomping around the world buying debt? Did nobody stop for a moment and wonder if perhaps Fannie Mae was a home for mentals? I mean, we’re talking here about an operation named after the human bottom. How did it sign its deals? With crayons?
Seriously, if I set up a business called Arse and went around buying outstanding loans on the nation’s never-never-land three-piece suites, I wouldn’t get very far before someone with a soothing voice and a corduroy jacket put me in a padded room for the rest of time.
Whatever. We have now arrived at a point where the world is going bankrupt. Politicians keep explaining that Britain is well placed to face the future, but we’re not. Not when the food in our fridge is worth more than the contents of our jewellery box and we’re scared witless that the Bradford & Bingley is about to go belly-up with all our life savings.
The net result is that half the country can’t afford to buy anything and the other half daren’t. This means companies can’t sell anything, which means they can’t employ anyone, which means everyone will fail to pay their mortgages, which will increase the likelihood of Bradford & Bingley going bust, which will accelerate the downward spiral to such an extent that it will be spinning faster than the atom-basher in Geneva. In short, we are all on the Titanic. It is holed. It is a mathematical certainty that it will sink. And all Gordon Brown can do is offer the ship’s most elderly passengers a few extra winter logs as they drown in a sea of disease, debt and destitution.
Needless to say, cars are an early casualty of the meltdown. Having seen orders plummet by 44% in July, Aston Martin sold just 19 cars in the whole of August, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, down from 58 in the same period last year. Porsche sales, meanwhile, were down by 58%, Land Rover also by 58% and Jaguar by 41%. Potential customers, then, are split into two groups: those who can buy but won’t, and those who want to buy but can’t. Because no loans are available.
It’s all such a shame. Not just for the 800,000 people who earn their living from cars in this country, but because for two hundred thousand years, human beings — with the notable exception of eco-activists who want to go backwards — have strived to improve the quality of their lives: to travel more quickly, to enjoy better health, to live longer and to be more comfortable. The labour-saving, fast-acting television remote control is a classic case in point. It is just so human: no dolphin would even begin to see the point.
And it’s the same story with cars. Just last night I left the Top Gear test track in the new Aston Martin Vantage, and, using just a couple of cubic feet of petrol, it brought me right to my door, 90 miles away, in just 95 minutes. That in itself is an achievement that any migrating wildebeest would kill for. And yet this snarling, sculptured machine is so much more than an auxiliary transport module. It’s also a feast for your eyes, an electrode for your heart and a song for your soul. And now, thanks to Fannie Mae, we may be about to kiss it goodbye. Pity, because for the first time since it came out three years ago, the Vantage can be classed as a genuine player, and not just a pretty-boy 911-substitute for cocks with a James Bond fantasy.
Oh, some of the old niggles remain. The dash, for instance, looks lovely, but like so many things that look lovely — loon pants, for example — it doesn’t work very well. Because there’s no central command unit, such as you find in a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz these days, the buttons are all over the place, and because there are thousands of them, they have to be small. Hitting the right one while on the move is like trying to stab mercury with a cocktail stick while standing on a power plate.
Then there are the seats, which are far too hard, and the manual gearbox, which is fine . . . except that to engage second and fourth you need to dislocate your elbow. And the iPod connection, which has never heard of an iPod. And the Volvo sat nav system, which, no matter what you tell it, simply picks a destination you’ve been to recently and sends you there instead. The other day I tried to go to a Top Gear shoot and ended up at my mother’s house, having phoned someone I hate on the way.
It sounds like I am not enamoured of Aston’s Vantage, but the simple fact of the matter is this. All of these problems existed in the old car, and that was hugely popular before Fannie Mae did a Bear Stearns and Northern Rocked its Freddie Mac.
Truth be told, I don’t really care about little faults like this. What I did care about on the old car was that its mouth kept writing cheques its engine couldn’t cash. You put your foot down and there was a huge bellow, but not much extra speed.
The problem was that Aston Martin and Jaguar were both playing for the blue oval. And politics meant the Aston couldn’t be as fast as Jaguar’s XKR. Now, though, Jaguar belongs to Mr Patel, and Aston is in the hands of some Kuwaitis, so the politics have gone. In their place stands a 4.7 litre version of Jag’s V8. The result is 420bhp instead of 380, and some proper get-up-and-go. Accelerate hard and the driver of a Porsche 911 Carrera S — it was R Hammond last night — is not going to see where you went. And not only because he can’t see over the steering wheel.
The amount of carbon dioxide produced by the new engine is less than before. Not that it’ll make any difference to your tax bill. Or the weather. More importantly, the suspension has been tweaked such that it’s still firm on a motorway but much softer at low speed. And while the body remains the same, the wheels are wider, so the car looks even better.
But the best thing about this car is that because it’s so brilliant at some things and so awkward at others, it has a human quality. Some cars you can like. Some you can use. And some you can respect. This one, though, you can love. I do. And that’s why I’d be so sad if Aston were to wither and die in the current economic climate.
However, while I am pessimistic, I suppose we should look more carefully at the perils we’ve faced these past 50 years. War. Asteroids. Jonathon Porritt. Russia. The IRA. And so on.
They’ve come. They’ve frightened us. And then, contrary to the teachings of the scaremongers, they’ve all just sort of fizzled out and gone away.
The Clarksometer
Aston Martin Vantage
4 Stars
ENGINE 4735cc, V8
POWER 420bhp @ 7000rpm
TORQUE 346lb ft @ 5000rpm
TRANSMISSION Six-speed manual
FUEL/CO2 20.4mpg / 328g/km
ACCELERATION 0-60mph: 4.7sec
TOP SPEED 180mph
PRICE £85,000
ROAD TAX BAND G (£400 a year)
RELEASE DATE On the road no
