Aston Martin DBS 2008 News

When the credits run on the forthcoming James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, there'll be a disclaimer that no animals were hurt during production.You won't see this, having left by that point for the carpark, but it's always there.As you climb into what is almost certainly a far humbler form of transport than those you've just seen on the screen, you might wonder at the lack of a Royal Society for Protection of Cruelty to Automobiles.As can be seen from these exclusive images of the sequel to Casino Royale — the flick that rebooted and imbued the flaccid Bond franchise with balls — Automobile Rights protestors would be outraged.Evidently not content with establishing a Guiness Book record for achieving seven barrel roles in Casino Royale, seven of the sumptuous DBSs were variously brutalised for the chase sequence near curtain up on Quantum.This is set an hour after the closing shot of Casino in which Daniel Craig's Bond stands — silenced Heckler & Koch smoking in his hand — over the writhing form of Mr White, who he has kneecapped by way of introducing himself as “Bond, James Bond”.Stunt coordinator Gary Powell, the third generation of the legendary English clan who have taken the falls and rolled with the punches on every Bond flick since Dr No, has said he set out to top his Casino rollout.“We have stiffened the suspension and pushed the wheels out at an angle and used special tyres for each surface. We take all the traction control off the cars so when we want to do a big wheeslpin, the car will allow you to do it.“That way the stuntman controls the car rather than the car controlling the stuntmen. We have put in a hydraulic handbrake in the Aston Martins so the stuntman can skid the car round corners. It's fitted between the driver and the door so that it's easy to reach for without looking down.”Someone must have done so at some point, though, one Aston plunging contrary to direction into northern Italy's usually placcid and postcard perfect Lake Garda. In addition to the scripted carnage visited upon a clutch of Alfa Romeo 159s, another had an “accidental” accident.While Quantum of Solace's director is Marc Forster, it was Dan Bradley who spent two months with the second unit shooting the sequence near Garda — a favourite setting for European car makers with products to launch.“I love the bit where Bond loses the driver's door of the Aston Martin,” says Bradley, seemingly oblivious to the wails of auto eroticists.“Now it's like, every car that comes past him, every shot that is fired at him, the potential for Bond's (survival) withers. I love what it gives us in terms of storytelling and the threat to Bond.”With Bondophiles buzzing that the new film will see a return of the gadgetry that was notable by its absence in Casino, this is one refreshingly unsophisticated touch. Whereas Sean Connery's original 1964 Aston Martin DB5 was stuffed with then hi-tech optional extras including retractable machine guns, Craig fires his H&K at the pursuing Alfas through the gaping doorframe.If somehow we've forgotten that Bond is fiction, albeit boy's own stuff of the highest order, the last sentence is a salient reminder. Alfas harrying an Aston?While the Fiat group have not revealed what involvement in the franchise currently dominated by Ford and its subsidiary Premier Auto Group cost, the mere association as the villains ride of choice can hardly hurt flagging sales of the 159.Those in question are the 159Ti 3.2 JTS V6 Q4, the topline edition of the sedan which sells locally from $76,990, a snip compared to the $466,600 pricetag on the DBS. Actually, we'd recommend the visually almost identical 2.2 JTS from $54,990.And if you're looking for a still more affordable bit of Bondage, Ford's micro Ka is to make a cameo appearance, just as the current Mondeo was first seen by the world in Casino Royale.Of course, soon after being seen in this placed product, the then-new Bond actor acquires an example of the iconic DB5 in a card game, a symbol of Craig taking the 007 mantle.This and the bravado opening of Quantum remind us that for all the girls, guns and gratuitous quips, the car remains a central motif of this longest running movie franchise.Quantum of Solace is released in November. The new trailer can be seen at www.007.com/ 

James Bond's last ride has finally made it to Queensland. Described as a DB9 on steroids, the DBS was unveiled at the Sunshine Aston Martin dealership at Southport, Queensland's sole outlet for the brand, last week. Four DBS vehicles have been sold and the dealership's next allocation is not expected until late next year. The DBS is the car which made a fleeting but record-breaking appearance in the last 007 film, Casino Royale in 2006. The production version made its global debut at the famed Concours d'Elegance at Pebble Beach in California last year. In the movie the car made a cameo appearance — on screen for a matter of seconds — but it made an impact and entered The Guinness Book of World Records by rolling seven times in the air before it crashed. The road car is one rung down from the DBR9 sports car, a rocket ship which won the GT1 class at the Le Mans 24-hour last year at the hands of Australian David Brabham, Rickard Rydell and Darren Turner. For $520,000 fully optioned including all on-road costs you get the most technological Aston ever built, full of space-age materials and lashings of carbon fibre. Under the V-shaped bonnet, which can be lifted with your little finger, hides a 6-litre V12 that screams to 6500rpm and maxes out at 380kW of power and 570Nm of torque. Acceleration is not for the weak-kneed as it tackles the 0-100km/h measurement in a supercar-qualifying 4.3 seconds. There is carbon throughout the car, including the front wing lip, the rear diffuser, the wing mirror joins and door surrounds that amount to a considerable slimming of overall weight. A complex Adaptive Damping System uses two valves to adjust the dampers to five different settings. The DBS is shod with specially developed Pirelli P-Zero 20-inch rubber. Huge brakes made of a carbon/ceramic composite are 12.5kg lighter than conventional materials. Up to 300 have been earmarked for global production. Sunshine Aston Martin sales manager Chris von Oppeln says the super sports coupe has attracted a wide demographic group. “The demographics on the Gold Coast vary from property developers, medical people, earth-movers, horse breeders and those from the mining industry,” he said. The next challenge for the Southport Aston Martin dealership is the arrival, possibly in late 2009 or early 2010, of the Rapide four-door super saloon. “We have had an enormous amount of interest in the Rapide,” von Oppeln said. “It will bring in people who have not previously considered an Aston.” A convertible version, the DBS Volante, was captured in development testing in Europe earlier this year.   Snapshot Aston Martin DBS Body: 2-seat coupe made from bonded aluminium VH structure Engine: all-alloy quad overhead cam 48-valve 6-litre V12 Layout: front mid-mounted engine, rear-wheel-drive Power: 380kW @ 6500rpm Torque: 570Nm @ 5750rpm 0-100km/h: 4.3secs Max speed: 302km/h Transmission: rear-mid-mounted 6-speed manual Wheels: 8.5x20-inch (front), 11x20-inch (rear) Tyres: Pirelli P Zero 245/35 (front), 295/30 (rear) Steering: rack and pinion with servotronic speed-sensitive power assist, 3 turns lock-to-lock Suspension: independent double wishbone (front), independent double wishbone (rear) Dimensions (mm): 4721 (l), 1905 (w), 1280 (h), 2740 (wheelbase) Brakes: 398mm ventilated carbon ceramic discs with six-piston calipers (front), 360mm ventilated carbon ceramic discs with four-piston calipers (rear) Price: $466,600 (list price), $520,000 (optioned and on road)  

MR Bond, your next car is ready. The concept Aston Martin DBS which James Bond rolled in the latest film, Casino Royale, has been unveiled in production form at the Pebble Beach Concours Elegance, California. Aston Martin Asia/Pacific marketing and PR supervisor Tomoko Ihara said the first DBS in Australia would arrive in the first quarter of next year. “We have advanced orders from several customers in Australia,” he said. However, Ihara said the price would not be released until the car was revealed at next month's Frankfurt Motor Show. The flagship two-seater is claimed to be set between the DB9 and the DBR9 track-only car. Worthy of a Bond car, it is powered by a 6.0-litre V12 producing 380kW of power, a top speed of 302km/h and a 0-100km/h time of 4.3sec. It features a lightweight carbon-fibre, aluminium and magnesium body; 20-inch wheels; high intensity discharge headlamps and LED rear lamps; rear-mid mounted six-speed manual gearbox with limited-slip differential; Pirelli P Zero tyres (245/35 and 295/30); an adaptive damping system with track mode; and large ventilated carbon ceramic disc brakes with six-piston calipers. Inside, the DBS gets a Bond-style leather-upholstered cabin with iridium silver centre console, carbon fibre door trims, sports seats with 10-way electric adjustment, hard disk drive and a boot-mounted umbrella. Now that James Bond is a non-smoker, the ashtray and cigar lighter are an optional extra along with lightweight seats with six-way adjustment (no electric heating), 20-inch alloy wheels with graphite finish, piano black facia trim and centre console finish, leather storage saddle, personalised sill plaques, auto-dimming interior rear-view mirror and comprehensive first-aid kit. The DBS will be built at Aston Martin's global headquarters at Gaydon, near Warwickshire in the UK. It joins the other models in the line-up: DB9, V8 Vantage Coupe and Vantage Roadster launched earlier this year. There are five Aston Martin dealers in Australia including Sunshine Aston Martin on the Gold Coast.  

Michael Schumacher retired with seven world championships, but 007 is up to 21 movies — with six different macho men in the role — and still going hard.During the past quarter-century and in 21 official films, Bond has been the target of more bad guys on wheels than anyone else in cinema history, yet he has always managed to escape without a scratch.And he has often pulled a nifty U-turn on the opposition with some sort of car trickery, from concealed machine guns on a 1960s Aston Martin to an '80s Lotus Esprit that morphed into a submarine — and even a remote-controlled BMW 7 Series in the '90s.Now he's back for the noughties, and doing it again in the remake of Casino Royale, which opened in cinemas just before Christmas. And he's back in an Aston Martin, just like the early days.The hype for the new 007 movie got me thinking not only about Bond's wheelwork in the latest British supercar, but also the dream car of my childhood: a scale model of the Aston Martin DB5 Bond drove in the 1960s.It came with all the Bond gear — revolving number plates, concealed machine guns, tyre-slashers, a bulletproof rear shield and even an ejector seat.In 1965, Corgi released its scale model of the gadget-laden DB5, and by 1968 nearly four million copies had been sold.It remains Corgi's best-known model, and I couldn't afford it.The release of the 21st-century Casino Royale has triggered a lot of talk about 007 and cars and movies.The model-making machine is already rolling again, with scaled-down copies of the DBS and even re-done — but de-gadgeted — replicas of the original DB5. And this time, there was a tiny Aston in my Christmas stocking.It's worth looking at what Bond cameos have done for car companies.BMW experienced plenty of benefit when it signed a multi-movie deal that began with its baby Z3 convertible. The world saw the car first when it was driven on the big screen by Bond. That deal continued with the Z8 convertible and the controversially styled 7, and even a BMW motorcycle.But then Britain bounced back for the last of Pierce Brosnan's appearances as Bond, when he slid back into an Aston and the baddies strapped into a rocket-equipped Jaguar.This time around, Agent 007 is driving a gorgeous new DBS, and there's even a special appearance by an original DB5.A poll has been conducted for the television series Top Gear on the most popular car chase in Bond movie history. And the winner is ... no, not the Aston. Not a Jaguar, nor the Lotus, nor even one of the BMWs.First choice was a crazy little Citroen 2CV that suffered all sorts of punishment — including being cut in half — when it was driven by Roger Moore in the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only. The four-wheeled co-stars:Dr No (1962): Sunbeam Alpine, Chevrolet Bel AirconvertibleFrom Russia With Love (1963): Bentley Mark IVGoldfinger (1964): Aston Martin DB5, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes 190SL, Lincoln Continental, Ford Mustang convertible, Rolls-Royce Phantom IIIThunderball (1965): Aston Martin DB5, Ford Mustang convertible, BSA Lightning motorcycle, gyrocopter1967 You Only Live Twice: Toyota 2000 GT, BMW CSOn Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969): Aston Martin DBS, Mercury Cougar, Bentley S2 Continental, Rolls-Royce CornicheDiamonds Are Forever (1971): Ford Mustang Mach 1, Triumph Stag, moon buggyLive And Let Die (1973): double-decker London bus, Chevrolet Impala convertible, MiniMokeThe Man With The Golden Gun (1974): AMC Hornet and Matador, Rolls-Royce Silver ShadowThe Spy Who Loved Me (1977): Lotus Esprit, Wetbike concept, Ford Cortina Ghia, Mini MokeMoonraker (1979): Bentley Mark IV, Rolls-Royce SilverWraithFor Your Eyes Only (1981): Citroen 2CV, Lotus Esprit Turbo, Rolls-Royce Silver WraithOctopussy (1983): Mercedes-Benz 250 SE, BMW 5 Series, Alfa Romeo GTVA View To A Kill (1985): Renault taxi, Ford LTD, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II, Chevrolet Corvette C4The Living Daylights (1987): Aston Martin DBS and V8 Vantage, Audi 200 QuattroLicence To Kill (1989): Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, Kenworth petrol tankerGoldenEye (1995): BMW Z3, Aston Martin DB5, Russian tank, Ferrari 355Tomorrow Never Dies (1997): Aston Martin DB5, BMW 750iL, BMW R1200C motorcycleThe World Is Not Enough (1999): BMW Z8, Rolls-Royce Silver ShadowDie Another Day (2002): Aston Martin Vanquish, Jaguar XKR, Ford Thunderbird convertibleCasino Royale (2006): Aston Martin DBS and DB5, Jaguar E-type roadster, Fiat Panda 4x4, Ford Transit, Ford Mondeo