August 15th, Paris is deadly calm and greyish once again (what a dramatic August weather-wise), US stock market yesterday broke the 13.200 level support and approached the 13.000 mark : this is not very good and further slump is highly likely. That's too serious to be commented today on this bank holiday, we'll see how bad it goes on Wall Street today, but for now I'd rather focus on a sunny spot of dream !
3 months ago, much to my surprise, with a very decent margin you elected Aston Martin as the most mythical car marque. A unique balance of beauty, class, performance and soul with a 90 year heritage.
Most sports cars are usually not that practical on a day-to-day basis but Aston Martin intended to demonstrate it wasn't the case with its latest beautiful V8 Vantage (left picture) : back in fall 2006, to celebrate the 30.000th car in Aston history, a V8 Vantage driven by 30 different Aston employees drove 30.000 miles in just 30 days across the German roads.
This same very car, which had already accrued 100,000 miles before departing and had no special preparation, yesterday ended up an incredible 7 week- 10.000 miles journey from Tokyo to London through challenging roads in Asia and Europe, crossing such countries as China, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, etc, on a project entitled "Driving Home Road Safety 2007".
Rough roads, extreme heats as well as very heavy rains, unpredictable local official bureaucracy, uncomprensible road signs, dubious petrol quality, etc, the car endangered almost everything imaginable in just 50 days.
But it safely drove to London where it now stands in front of the InterContinental Hotel Park Lane. The car ended up just fine mechanically, while it simply used its fair share of gas, water and oil across the 10.000 miles. What an impressive reliability !
Aston Chairman Ulrich Bez, an ex Porsche top executive who has been truly instrumental in growing Aston Martin from 1.000 to above 7.000 cars a year, was yesterday in London to welcome the duo ((picture with the 2 drivers in front of the Hotel) and could say : "we have followed Richard’s and Phil’s ups and downs all the way, and admired their determination. The car, too, has been more than up to the demanding task they asked of it, and we are very proud of its unfailing reliability. This journey has been the V8 Vantage’s toughest test to date, and reiterates that the Vantage is a truly useable and durable sports car".
Very interesting.
I knew it when I saw a Astin Martin vs a Jaguar Convertible battling on frozen grounds in the James Bond XX movie :-)
Meanwhile building cars that can easily be driven on a daily basis is not a trend that Aston Martin is alone to follow : Porsche inaugurated the fashion some years ago with the 9-97.
Posted by: A-C | August 16, 2007 at 02:13 PM
Porsche... l'élégance et la grâce et la réalité d'ASTON MARTIN - pour moi c'est plus beau qu'un rêve !!! Tout simplement, en étant une femme je me vois plus dans ASTON que dans un Porsche.
Une question s’il vous plait : Pourquoi pour le film « James Bond » a étais choisi ASTON MARTIN, et non pas le Porsche (par exemple) ou une autre marque?
Posted by: Liliya | August 19, 2007 at 04:34 AM
James Bond étant anglais, il était normal de prendre une marque anglaise de bon aloi, associant le chic avec les performances...
Posted by: Michel de Guilhermier | August 19, 2007 at 08:16 AM