Driver's Notebook: Spy vs. Spy
August 1, 2006
And there it was. Parked at an angle on a raised black platform
and seemingly glowing from within, sat the DBS. The body, lithe and angular,
crouched like a predator seconds before the attack. The car seemed to swell
against its own strength as the sharklike skin, bluish and mechanical, stretched
tautly over a skeleton of aluminum and carbon fiber. This color, dubbed Casino
Ice, was created just for the DBS and possibly just for this moment, for its
stormy grays and blues elusively shifted with even my slightest movement around
its body. The DBS is the synergy of form, function, and tradition: It is
muscular yet lithe, audacious and loud, sleek and understated.; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
The four large apertures in the hood are air extractors designed
to cool the fire-breathing V-12 engine. In rare cases they may also be
indicative of optional surface-to-air missiles. (Click image to enlarge)
Aston Martin has traveled a rocky road to success. Take one
look at the flattened manta ray styling of the four-door Lagonda of the early
’80s for evidence of Aston’s bumpy ride into the 21st century. In the last 15
years, however, Aston regained its connection to the soul of the machine. Now it
will introduce a new model in the very film franchise that helped create the
modern Aston Martin mystique. The silver DB5 from 1965’s Goldfinger,
presented as part of Bond’s indispensable spy kit, was the epitome of the
automobile for a British secret agent. Refined, understated, but hiding a
powerplant under the hood and a few gadgets here and there, the DB5 became the
symbol of the ultimate motor toy for men-children everywhere. (The car used in
Goldfinger sold at auction recently for $1.9 million.)
I am pleasantly stunned by the DBS for a moment, caught up in surprise, for I had prepared to be underwhelmed by yet another uninteresting movie car overloaded by gadgets, gizmos, and the clichéd macho automotive design vernacular that churns out cars that look like Hot Wheels on steroids. But this car is no toy; it is pure machine. A car for men who take down foreign governments while sipping well-shaken cocktails and bedding the world’s most unattainable women. It is a car for the old Bond, the one who drove the DB5, the one who had chest hair and perfectly tailored suits and could pass for a Japanese pearl diver, even though he was 6 feet tall and Scottish.
I circled the car, getting closer without penetrating the golden light that surrounded the DBS like a halo. I could smell the rubber on the oversized 20-inch Pirelli racing tires barely concealed beneath curved hips and flanks. The pure equine lines of the body are unmistakably Aston Martin. The DBS looks like an Edward Muybridge photograph: a Thoroughbred caught with all four hooves off the track.
The exaggerated musculature, the slope of the nose, and the flared fenders and skirting that follow the undercarriage together create the impression of a genetically fused rocket and racehorse. And it’s true; according to designer Marek Reichman, he sketched horses racing across frozen lakes in St. Moritz to find inspiration in the sinewy grace of the equine muscle structure and biomechanics.
"It’s just a hair shy of being a racecar," says Bez, who admits the DBS was designed and built in only six months, just in time to introduce the car in Casino Royale.
Reichman also revealed that he paid homage not only to the long, stately Aston tradition, but also to the late, great American muscle cars of the 1960s. There is more than a little Steve McQueen in the DBS’ double helix.
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