2006 Aston Martin Db9 Volante, One Owner on 2040-cars

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1965 Aston Martin DB5 Shooting Brake: Rare, stylish, practical, and up for auction

Have you ever looked at a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 and thought, "I would totally buy one, but it's just not practical enough." If so, we're a little surprised, but at least you're not alone. According to RM Sotheby's, David Brown, the man who ran Aston Martin for several decades and started the line of DB models that continues today, felt similarly. Apparently he couldn't fit his polo gear into a regular Aston coupe, and he wanted somewhere for his dog to sit that would keep it from tearing up the seats. As such, the Aston Martin DB5 shooting brake was created for him and a few wealthy customers by coachbuilder Harold Radford. The grand total was 12. One of those 12 cars is going up for auction by RM Sotheby's. It's one of four built with left-hand drive and was sold to a Swiss buyer who optioned it with a power antenna, seat belts, passenger-side head rest, air horns and initials on the doors. The car has had two other owners and has gone through a couple restorations. The second owner picked it up in 2003 and had it restored by Aston Engineering, which bumped the displacement from 4.0 liters to 4.2 and replaced the factory automatic with a 5-speed manual. The second owner acquired it in 2009 and upped the displacement even further to 4.7 liters along with upgraded shocks and springs. The car will be auctioned at RM Sotheby's Monterey event during the week of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. The company expects it to sell for between $1,000,000 and $1,400,000. Considering the rarity of the car, that doesn't seem terrible, but according to the Hagerty price guide, it's rather high. It values the DB5 Shooting Brake at $790,000 for a concours-quality car. For reference, Hagerty values a concours-quality DB5 coupe at $1,450,000.

Aston Martin V12 Vantage teased again

The newest Aston Martin V12 Vantage cometh. Although we don't know when it comes and we don't know how many, we know what its front kind-of looks like, we know what it sounds like, and thanks to another Twitter tease, we've got a glimpse of the rear end. Starting with that front aspect in the clouded image above, there will be an oversized grille like that on the Vantage F1 Edition with flanking intakes and a front lip spoiler. That lip will be aerodynamically entangled with some downforce-generating devices in back. The shaky-cam video tweet reveals a high wing with what look like serious endplates, and a double diffuser that would create additional ground-hugging suction over the standard car's diffuser. If the prototypes spotted at the Nurburgring can be trusted, a central exhaust will replace the tips normally existing under the diffuser wings. Do not go gentle into that good night.#AstonMartin #V12Vantage #NeverLeaveQuietly — Aston Martin (@astonmartin) December 21, 2021 The two previous V12 Vantages, parked behind the coming model in the photo above, have all been hardcore. This one, clearly, will go several leaps deeper into brutal territory. Considering CEO Tobias Moers' time heading AMG, this feels like the company skipping a predictable V12 Vantage and going straight to a V12 Vantage Black Series. This being the third teaser this month for what will become the flagship Vantage in the range, we get the feeling a reveal won't be more than a few weeks away. Rumors and whispers say we can expect the 5.5-liter twin-turbo V12 to produce somewhere around 670 horsepower, which would be 20 ponies down on the same engine in the Vantage-based Aston Martin Speedster unveiled last year, 40 ponies above the DB11 with the V12. The Supercar Blog heard that all the body panels will be carbon fiber, and that there will be just 299 examples built, all using an eight-speed automatic transmission. Moers has said he plans 10 derivatives of existing models by 2023, the V12 Vantage's tagline "Never Leave Quietly" leading us to believe this car will start the crescendo that announces the V12's exit. The next Vantage and DB11 will go all-electric, the automaker pledging all its road cars will be battery-electric by 2030, with ICE builds reserved for track purposes.

Soundcheck: Aston Martin Valkyrie begins to scream

In July, Aston Martin published the first video of the Valkyrie on track at Britain's Silverstone Circuit during the Formula One Grand Prix weekend there. Test driver Chris Goodwin didn't push the 1,160-horsepower coupe to its limits, merely massaging the throttle for the camera a few times. The English carmaker headed back to Silverstone this month with a group of guests in tow, and this time the test driver put a little more muscle into the fly-bys. Since the track was wet, the soundtrack still can't be considered the ultimate experience, but even so, the 6.5-liter Cosworth V12 sounds exceptionally good. This new video injects a high-pitched wail that was missing in July, the kind of wicked, soaring keen that jellies one's organs and notifies the mind of blinding terrors on approach. In fact, the Valkyrie now makes all the noises Formula 1 fans wished the F1 race cars could make. That's no hyperbole, either. Compare the modern Cosworth to the 3.5-liter Honda V12 in the 1991 McLaren MP4/6, the resemblance is clear. Remove the street-legal equipment on the Aston Martin and let Goodwin uncork it, as we expect to happen in next year's World Endurance Championship, and it's clear the WEC might have the best sounding racers in all of motorsport. Deliveries are scheduled to begin before the end of the year, so Aston Martin should be wrapping up its validation testing on Verification Prototype 1 if it hasn't already. After that come competition entries into the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). And after that, someone will need to convince at least one owner to drive the Valkyrie on the street so that we can all enjoy the noise.