‘You’ll ’ave to back it up, mate,” said the driver of the
Mercedes ML. We were facing each other in the St Martin’s Lane NCP car park
in the heart of London’s West End: he was trying to get in and I was trying
to get out – and there was absolutely no way we could pass each other. We
were on one of those steep spirals that are so narrow it takes all your
concentration just to stop your car scraping the sides.
The fact that I was in a brand new Aston Martin didn’t help.
“I don’t think I can,” I said. “It’s taken me literally 30 minutes just to get
this far.”
That was an exaggeration, obviously. In reality, it had only taken me 25
minutes.
“What am I s’posed to do?” he said. “What if there’s another car behind me?”
At this point, my wife decided to get involved.
“Please don’t make my husband reverse,” she said, batting her eyelids. “This
isn’t his car – he’s just borrowed it for a couple of days and, to be
honest, he doesn’t really know how to drive it. It’s actually the Aston
Martin used in the new Bond film. It costs £160,000 and if he scratches it,
he’ll get into real trouble.”
If the man was in the slightest doubt about what to do next, this made up his
mind. “James Bond, is it?” he said. “Well you better call Q, cos I ain’t
goin’ nowhere.”
“What a horrible man,” said my wife, sitting back down.
I stared at my antagonist, weighing up my options. What would Bond do?
Actually, it was obvious. He would march over to the Mercedes, pull the man
out of the driver’s seat and then reverse it back up the ramp at breakneck
speed, causing an asteroid shower of sparks.
That would put the little tosser in his place.
“All right, mate, no worries,” I said, waving apologetically.
“I’ll stick it in reverse.” Needless to say, by the time I got the car home
that night all four wheel rims looked as if they’d been held against a lathe
for approximately 15 minutes.
I had naively imagined that being behind the wheel of an Aston Martin –
particularly the very same Aston used in Quantum of Solace – would unleash
my inner Bond. In the normal course of events, I can be seen crawling up
Acton High Street in a Vauxhall Zafira, biting my lip as a menagerie of
feral children hurl Hula Hoops at the back of my head. But life in a DBS
would be different – and not just because it’s a two-seater. No longer would
I be the mousey Englishman who tut-tutted under his breath when a boy racer
in a Honda Civic Type R cut in front of me at the lights. With 510bhp under
my bonnet, I would cast aside my Sad Dad disguise and become a demonic road
warrior ready to take on all-comers.
Such delusions of grandeur are certainly encouraged by the car’s interior.
With its undulating, black leather upholstery, punctuated by chrome
switchgear, it looks like an S&M torture chamber. The key – or, rather,
the Emotion Control Unit – is a crystal cylinder that resembles the device
Superman used to turn on the Fortress of Solitude.
As you press it firmly into place, the on-board computer produces a perfectly
judged blip on the accelerator, giving anyone watching the impression that
you know exactly what you’re doing.
Unfortunately, this impression doesn’t last long – at least not in my case. No
sooner had the man from Aston dropped it off, than I scraped the underneath
of the car trying to pilot it into my driveway. I gingerly put it into
reverse and then scraped it again on the way out.
The feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you hear the carbon fibre
body of the DBS grinding against concrete is not like the sensation produced
by damaging other cars. When I reversed the Vauxhall Zafira into a bollard,
for instance, I don’t remember being overwhelmed by a sense of utter
despair. It was almost as if I had been lent the Mona Lisa for the weekend
and in the course of trying to hang it up had accidentally stuck my finger
through the canvas.
The evening that ended in the Mexican stand-off in the NCP began promisingly
enough, with my wife and I sliding into the car in formal evening wear. We
were going to the opening of the London Film Festival and I had got it into
my head that it would be “cool” to travel to and from this event in the new
Bond car.
Unfortunately, the opening “gala” consisted of two components: a screening of
Frost/Nixon at the Odeon Leicester Square followed by a party at the Park
Lane Hilton. That meant two NCPs rather than one. In order to get to the
first in St Martin’s Lane, I had to squeeze the car through the tiny,
cobbled streets of Covent Garden and I didn’t dare go above 2mph. As a
result, it kept stalling, which was bad for two reasons. First, it caused a
group of looky-loos to assemble on the pavement and start nudging each
other. Second, it meant I had to remember the elaborate restarting
procedure. The man from Aston had shown me this when he delivered it, but I
hadn’t bothered to write it down.
“Can you remember what I did earlier?” I said to my wife when it happened for
the third time. “Did I open the door after I’d activated the central locking
or beforehand?”
“This is like being on a date with Mr Bean,” she said.
In the end, it took us so long to get the car out of the first NCP and into
the second that by the time we arrived at the party it was virtually over.
We sat huddled in a corner, bracing ourselves for the ordeal ahead. Is this
what it’s like owning a supercar? Is every evening overshadowed by the
daunting task of getting the car home without causing any additional damage?
“That was one of the most stressful evenings of my life,” said my wife when we
finally got back to Acton.
It wasn’t until Jonathan, my brother-in-law, got behind the wheel that I began
to see the point of the DBS. He’s a rally driver, one of the best in his
class, and we arranged to take a road trip to Heston Blumenthal’s pub in
Bray, Berkshire.
As we pulled out of East Acton Lane onto the A40 we were unexpectedly faced
with a clear stretch of road and he started “giving it the full beans”, as
he put it. The most distinctive thing about accelerating through the gears
in the DBS is not the g-force that pins you to your seat, but the
high-pitched roar of the engine. With both windows down, it sounds exactly
like a racing car.
“I could get used to this,” he said. Unfortunately, no sooner had he opened it
up than he spotted a speed camera, giving him an opportunity to test the
carbon ceramic brakes.
He had mapped out a route taking us up to exit 5 on the M40 and then tracking
back on an A road to enable him to put the car through its paces, but speed
restrictions made it virtually impossible to have any fun. At one point, he
even “kerbed the alloy” – scraped a wheel – going across a width-restricted
bridge.
“Forget about a missile or a hail of bullets,” he said. “If Blofeld wanted to
stop Bond in his tracks all he’d need is a speed bump.”
In fairness to the good people of Aston Martin, I did experience one moment of
glory during my tenure of their flagship car. Midway through lunch at the
Hinds Head, Blumenthal himself appeared.
“Is that your car outside?” he said. “Fancy a spin?” I said. “Why not?” This
time it was my turn to “give it the full beans”. I made sure both windows
were open before slamming down the accelerator on a stretch of dual
carriageway just outside Bray. The car leapt ahead of me like a bucking
horse, the V12 engine emitting a satisfying scream. By the time I deposited
Heston back at the Hinds Head, he was grinning from ear to ear.
“How much does one of these cost?” he asked. “It’s a lot better than the
Vantage I test-drove a couple of years ago.” If my brief stewardship of the
DBS enables me to get a reservation at the Fat Duck it will have been worth
all the aggravation, but I’m not sure I’d like to own one. What is the point
of driving a car with a top speed of 191mph in a city where you’re not
allowed to go above 50mph? As for the driveways, the NCPs and the speed
bumps, if my hair hadn’t fallen out already, it would have done by the end
of the weekend. The new Aston may be suitable for Mr Bond, but Mr Bean is
happy with his Vauxhall Zafira.
Aston Martin DBS
ENGINE 5935cc V12
POWER 510bhp @ 6500rpm
TORQUE 420lb ft @ 5750rpm
TRANSMISSION Six-speed manual
FUEL/CO2 17.3mpg / 388g/km
ACCELERATION 0-62mph 4.3sec
TOP SPEED 191mph
PRICE £161,287
TAX BAND G (£400 a year)
