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Andy Palmer leaves Renault-Nissan to serve as CEO of Aston Martin

Aston Martin has been without a helmsman since Ulrich Bez stepped down from the chief executive office at the end of last year, stepping back to serve as non-executive chairman in a semi-retired ambassadorial capacity. The British automaker, now on the cusp of a new era, has been running without a CEO since, but has now named Bez's replacement in Andy Palmer.
If you don't recognize the name, you should: Palmer has worked under the Renault-Nissan Alliance for decades now, rising through the ranks to become one of the top executives under Carlos Ghosn. Most recently he was serving as executive vice president of the entire group and chairman of the Infiniti brand, but like Carlos Tavares, who recently left Renault to run Peugeot, Palmer is now embarking on a new mission as CEO of Aston Martin.
Once the transition period is complete at the start of October, Palmer's role as Chief Planning Officer at Renault-Nissan will be assumed by Philippe Klein, who steps up from his current role as executive vice president of product planning for Renault. Read the statements from both companies below.

Aston Martin DB5 Vantage trio for sale, and they're as rare as rare gets

Among classic Aston Martins, there are perhaps none better, from pre-war antiques to modern supercars, than the DB5. And among DB5s, the Vantage specifications are the most prized among car collectors. With only 70 of the high-performance examples built out of an already small pool of about 1,023 regular-flavor DB5s, they are a rare breed. If that's your bag, there's currently a once-in-a-lifetime sale of three different body styles of DB5 Vantages as one lot. The sale, facilitated by Aston Martin dealers Nicholas Mee & Co Ltd., will offer a Vantage in every DB5 body style built. The Vantages looked like normal DB5s, but had 322 horsepower, a 40-horse gain, thanks to a higher cam profile and some Weber carbs to replace the S.U. units.  On the coupe, at least, that translated to a 0-60 time in the mid-6's, quite impressive for a 1960s car. The Vantage sale trio is one coupe, one convertible, and one shooting brake. It'd be impossible to get that last one anywhere else, as there was only one factory Vantage shooting brake ever built, and this is it. In total, only 12 DB5 shooting brakes were made, with the first being a one-off for Aston Martin's chairman at the time, David Brown. He used it for the most rich-British-guy activities you can imagine — hauling gun dogs and polo equipment. Eventually, 11 were ordered by customers, but this California Sage specimen is the sole Vantage-spec car. The next rarest is the Caribbean Pearl Blue convertible. Only 123 DB5 convertibles were ever built, and only 5 to 12 (depending on who you ask) were fitted with the Vantage engine. While rarity or open-top cruising might be reasons to desire this car, we want it simply because it's one of the few we've seen that doesn't come in some dour shade of gray or British racing green. Lastly, for all the 007 cosplayers, is the Silver Birch coupe, looking exactly like the one made famous by James Bond. It has been a staple of the film franchise ever since 1964's "Goldfinger," quite possibly the first car to benefit from a movie fame halo long before the "Back to the Future" DeLorean or the "Fast and the Furious" Supra. All three cars come with a dossier of build details, ownership and maintenance records, and British Motor Industry Heritage Trust certificates guaranteeing their provenance. The asking price is $5,643,000, which may seem steep considering a DB5 Vantage coupe is worth a little over $1 million.

2021 Aston Martin DBX looks the part, likely drives it, too

After 106 years in business and after five years working on development, Aston Martin presents its first-ever SUV, the DBX. Having seen spy shots and teasers of the vehicle's progress over the past year, it's everything we'd expect, and on first glance it holds up as an Aston Martin. The company's already told us there's an AMG-sourced, 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 making 542 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque, making this the most powerful version of that motor in the English automaker's lineup. Shifting through a nine-speed torque converter automatic, zero to 60 miles per hour takes 4.3 seconds, top speed is 181 mph. We've heard the exhaust note. And we've seen the leather-filled interior and the $189,000 USD price, which comes to $192,086 after destination. What we now know are 24 pages worth of press release detail that make this a true Aston Martin. We'll share just a few of those details here. The exterior has all the rake and swoop one would expect. Astride the trademark grille shape are LED headlights, below those, DRLs ring two aerodynamic ducts that reduce lift and drag and cool the brakes. Frameless doors hide their window seals for a super clean look, and the B-pillars are fronted with glass to help the illusion of an unbroken expanse. The rakish rear glass slides down to a pronounced, fixed spoiler lip reminiscent of the Vantage. Two wheel sizes are offered, both 22 inches — the V-spoke design shown, and an optional Ribbon design that gives the "appearance of interwoven strands of contrasting color metal" that's inspired by "the interlocking antlers of stags in battle." The DBX comes on a new bonded aluminum platform specifically developed to support an SUV. Years of experience with the construction method helped engineers keep weight of the five-seater down to 4,940 pounds for the vehicle overall. The weight is dynamically managed by an adaptive air suspension bolstered by a 48-volt anti-roll system. The standard 7.8-inch ground clearance can be raised by 1.8 inches to clear a 19.7-inch wading depth, or lowered by a hair under two inches when easy access is needed to the 22.3 cubic-feet of trunk space behind the second row. The new AWD system uses an electronically controlled center diff and a rear differential to apportion torque, going from a 47/53 torque split to sending almost 100 percent of twist to the rear.