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'Sylvan Rock' by Aston Martin could be your home for $7.7 million

Aston Martin is known for some of the most gorgeous automotive designs ever produced, but occasionally it lends that expertise to other items. Sylvan Rock, a 55-acre luxury residential resort to be constructed in New York's Hudson Valley in partnership with New York's S3 Architecture, is one such venture. It's also Aston Martin's first collaboration in the design of a private home. Sylvan Rock will be built about 80 miles north of New York City, near Rhinebeck. Calling it a house is underselling it; even the property's own website refers to it as a "compound." It comprises a nearly 6,000-square foot primary residence, three guest "pods," a pool, pool house, tree house and garden. Oh, and yes, there's a three-car garage, but that's not what really sells Sylvan Rock as a driver's home.  "Driving down a bucolic country road, enjoying the curves in the road, you arrive at an unassuming gatehouse entrance to the private driveway. Along the driveway, the property unfolds onto a secluded luxury retreat," the promotional material enthuses. Sounds like a nice little spot, doesn't it? That's straight from the description on the property web site, which is linked above. It has detailed plans and a much larger gallery of rendered images. Here are the quick specs: Residence | 5,983 SF 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 half baths 3 car garage Pool and deck Pool House | 873 SF Three Guest House “Pods” | 1,574 SF Treehouse - Architect designed Food Garden and Trails Total finished spaces in compound: 8,430 SF If you can part with a cool $7.7 million, it could be your new home away from your 17 other homes, provided you can wait until 2022, when construction will be finished. Oh, and if you have another couple hundred grand burning a hole in your pocket, Aston Martin will even throw in a new DBX in matching Onyx Black. Honestly, if you can flash the cash, I'm sure they'll sell you as many cars as you want — or, you know, shares. They'll even throw in a picnic basket for free. Yes, that last part is real.  Featured Gallery Aston Martin Sylvan Rock View 9 Photos Auto News Design/Style Marketing/Advertising Aston Martin Luxury

You can't buy an Aston Martin GT8, but you can configure one

Aston Martin launched an online configurator for the Vantage GT8, a limited-edition sports car that will be sold in other markets. The GT8, revealed last month, is arguably the ultimate version of the Vantage to date: all the extreme aero from the previous GT12, but with less mass up front. Its atmospheric 4.7-liter V8 engine churns out 446 horsepower through a six-speed manual or a seven-speed automatic to the rear wheels. The overall package represents the most direct translation we've seen of Aston Martin Racing's victorious racers to the road. And with turbo power enveloping the factory at Gaydon (and the AMG engine workshop in Germany), it may be the last of the great naturally aspirated Astons ever. The company will make 150 copies. The configurator offers a choice of 35 exterior colors, along with eight "accent packs," four special racing-inspired liveries, a quartet of wheel choices, six colors of brake caliper, a whole mess of carbon-fiber exterior components, and an aggressive aero kit. On aesthetic grounds alone, we'd be inclined to leave off those oversized wings, spec most of the carbon trim pieces, go with a subdued shade of green, and just the right amount of red to make it pop. Waste a few minutes (or hours) with the web tool and see how you'd spec yours. Related Video:

2022 Aston Martin DBX Review | 2 exceptional cars for the price of 2

PORTLAND, ORE. – It is so easy to greet the Aston Martin DBX with a great big eye roll. Here we go again, yet another purveyor of beautiful sporting machines selling out to produce a bloated SUV that's utterly anathema to all the cars that came before. Yet another cynical brand exercise where some classic styling cues and a desirable badge are applied to someone else's SUV platform. And yet another SUV that's hopelessly compromised by those same brand affectations. Worse, this is Aston Martin. If you take away the DB5-derived body style and GT driving experience, what exactly are you left with? Aren't those the best reasons to buy one instead of a Porsche? In other words, the arrival of a $222,000 Aston Martin wasn't necessarily greeted by giddy clapping and the score of "Goldfinger" turned up to 11. Skepticism would be the word. Yet, immediately, it started to erode. It may be an SUV and certainly bloated compared to a Vantage, but it sure is pretty. And not just because of that trademark grille and Vantage-like ducktail. It's all about the proportions. The pronounced body-length shoulder line and inboard fastback greenhouse may evoke Aston's cars, but it also avoids the tall, slab-like profile of a Porsche Cayenne and most other SUVs. The wheels are pushed to the corners, elongating the body and creating the sort of long hood, short deck proportions one expects from a two-door GT and definitely not an SUV. Even without the styling cues, the thing looks like an Aston Martin. The DBX is also not on "someone else's SUV platform," it was created by Aston Martin for Aston Martin. So unlike the Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus and earlier Cayennes, Aston Martin didn't need to contend with the sort of existing, unchangeable hard points that lead to awkward proportions. This can also have practical benefits. Take that elongated wheelbase, for example, which is 2.6 inches longer than the Bentayga's despite the entire DBX being 3.4 inches shorter. Much like the similarly from-scratch Jaguar F-Pace, I suspect Aston Martin made the DBX wheelbase so long for the aforementioned aesthetic reasons and because, unshackled by an existing platform, it could. Yet, like the F-Pace, the happy side effect to a long wheelbase is extra interior space. In the DBX, the amount of extra space is genuinely surprising. We fit an enormous Britax rear-facing child seat in the rear and had the front passenger seat pushed far enough back for someone 6-foot-3 to comfortably sprawl out.