Tag: Aston Martin

Autosport International 2023

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date January 17, 2023

Autosport International is back in 2023, three years after its last appearance at NEC, Birmingham. I am excited to see the show this year and the return of cars and models.

I have been attending Autosport since 2012, and the last three years were a significant break.

As expected, the show was amazing. There were new companies, models, and exciting new motorsport technologies, particularly electric vehicle racing cars. I anticipate seeing more electric vehicles in future Autosport shows.

By the way, I don’t know the story behind that Lamborghini Huracan.

Tags Aston Martin, Autosport International, Autosport International 2023, Autosport Models, F1, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Nissan GTR, Porsche 911

Cars

Salon Privé Chelsea, London 2022

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date May 5, 2022

Ferrari Daytona SP3 Salon Prive 2022 London

I have tried to attend Salon Privé for a long time, but I’ve never managed it! I always thought Salon Privé was a small car show, and that’s all. However, I was wrong.

I realized this when I attended the event at Royal Chelsea Hospital in London this year. Since I started blogging, I think this is the first car show where I didn’t ask for a press pass.

Salon Privé London has something unique to offer! It is small, but it has everything! From Prodrive’s Paris Dacar off-roader BRX Hunter to Bugatti Chirons (multiple Chirons were present). I’m not even taking into account the number of Lamborghinis that were present.

Another great part of Salon Privé was Anna-Louise Felstead (Instagram @alfelstead). She is a fantastic artist whose paintings I love. This is especially true for the ones that convey the reality of luxury cars. They are amazing!

Also, there were two helicopters at Salon Privé. I can’t ignore them in this write-up. From this year, I will be attending a future Salone Privé event, and I highly recommend it!

Clive Sutton Mustang CS850 Salon Prive 2022 London

Tags Aston Martin, Bugatti, Clive Sutton, Ferrari, Fiat 500, Mercedes, Morgan, Pininfarina, Porsche, Prodrive, Salon Prive 2022

Cars

Does the Aston Martin DBX Look Like the Ford Kuga?

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date April 11, 2020

In an effort to escape their current financial quagmire, Aston Martin have officially revealed their first SUV to the world: the Aston Martin DBX. When the brand was sold away from the Ford Group, Aston Martin couldn’t quite find their feet. As a result, they have been suffering from severe financial difficulties for nearly half a decade.

One of the primary reasons for this is that their vehicles have not been on the same level as their competitors. Aston Martin cars are lightweight and powerful, but they don’t offer the sophisticated grand tourer experience as alternative vehicles. For example, there are no driving assistance technologies available with the Aston Martin vehicles. As Daimler AG owns 5% of Aston Martin, I thought we would see more Mercedes-Benz technologies inside new Aston Martin vehicles. Indeed, the gearbox, engine, and infotainment technology of the DBX are borrowed from Mercedez-Benz.

Sadly, Aston Martin are not doing well. This may lead to another company-wide financial crash unless DBX saves the company. However, the DBX entered to the market rather late. At first glance, Aston Martin’s brand identity doesn’t align well with sports utility vehicles, but SUVs make lots of money. Instead of investing in Formula 1 and other unnecessary projects, Aston Martin should have introduced the DBX years ago. This formula saved Porsche!

Although the Ford Motor Company no longer own Aston Martin, the DBX looks like it came from the same design studio as the third generation Ford Kuga. A pair of untrained eyes might not see any difference at all, as, from the outside, both cars look very similar. The Ford Kuga is much smaller than the DBX, but they look largely the same. Sadly, Ford will be taking benefit of this similarity. The subjective value of the Kuga will be increased thanks to DBX!

Photo Credits // Ford and Aston Martin

Tags Aston Martin, Aston Martin DBX, Ford, Ford Kuga

Cars

The New Aston Martin Vantage

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date December 5, 2017

The new Aston Martin Vantage. It has been a long time since the Vantage was originally introduced. Aston Martin aimed to capture the Porsche 911 market with the Vantage. I assume that they thought making a car louder would convince Porsche 911 owners to buy an Aston Martin. However, things did not go as planned, and Vantage never managed to capture the Porsche 911 market as they wanted to. On the other hand, the Vantage was a smaller scale version of the DB9. Furthermore, the Ford divorce put financial pressure on Aston Martin, and the Vantage couldn’t keep up with the Porsche 911.

A few days ago, Aston Martin revealed the second-generation Vantage. This time, it does not have a significant design resemblance to the other Aston Martins. It actually looks like a Tesla from the front. Despite this resemblance, the new Vantage shares the same engine as the Mercedes AMG GT. In case you wonder how could this happen, the Mercedes-AMG is helping Aston Martin! This is probably because soon Daimler AG will buy Aston Martin and it will become part of the Daimler group, and use all the Mercedes-Benz engines and telematic systems. They will be great for Aston Martin, because the Aston Martin’s technology is stuck in early 2000s!

The new Vantage did not change this tradition. It does not offer any significant or ground-breaking driving assistance systems. Yes, it is a light car, and the drive train is designed by ex-Lotus engineers. It still offers a manual gearbox. However, the era of making a loud engine has passed.

Unfortunately, Aston Martin can’t sustain their business with the “We are luxury and we ignore technology” approach. The new generation will not buy their cars. People look for driving assistance systems, pre-crash systems that can sense a crash before it happens, semi-autonomous driving. I have told this to people in the automotive industry and they always ignore it.

Vantage is not that bad. It offers 100% locking rear-differential and torque vectoring via braking (a similar technology is used in Fords). The weight balance is perfect at 50:50. The rear positioned ZF eight speed automatic makes for the perfect weight balance. The Mercedes-AMG source engine offers great performance in terms of fuel economy. However, I couldn’t see any driving assistance system information in the press release. Actually, Aston Martin said that the Vantage is iPod compatible. iPod is technically out of production now, only iPod Touch is available!

Yes, the Vantage looks totally different from the outside to the inside. The interior does not share the clean minimalist design of the other Aston Martins, and is designed more aggressively. The exterior design is a reflection of the Vantage, and does not look like the other Aston Martins.

Aston Martin is experiencing the confirmation-bias issues faced by all the other luxury brands. They still wish to resist the changing world, and assume that people are happy with this. However, the world is changing very rapidly. Tesla just announced an electric powered coupe that can accelerate to 100 km/h in 1.9-sec! And one that costs a fraction of a Bugatti. We use smartphone more than anything else. We live in smart buildings and the luxury car world is trying to send emails using typewriters!

I really want to see a Mercedes-Benz S-Coupe-based Aston Martin.

The Aston Martin Vantage is powered by a 4.0-litre, 510PS/685Nm twin-turbo V8 engine mated to an eight-speed ZF transmission. The maximum speed 314 km/h. It goes from 0-100 km/h in 3.6 seconds.

Photo Credit // Aston Martin

Tags Aston Martin, Aston Martin Vantage

Cars

New Aston Martin Vanquish at W-One London Dealer

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date October 27, 2014

The new Aston Martin Vanquish, I managed to spot one at W-One London dealer. W-One is one of the most exclusive dealers of Aston Martin and placed at the heart of the London, few metres from Hyde Park and just behind the Mayfair. W-One Aston Martin is the right place to buy an Aston Martin, similar to buying an Apple from an Apple Store!

The new Aston Martin Vanquish is not that new, we all know that. Because, Aston Martin is not yet bought by a huge German car company and has lots of money to develop new cars. However, Aston Martin are playing the texture of their cars and introduce improved models. The new Vanquish still offers the same Ford made V12 engine and still some of the interior parts are the same as the DB9 from 2004! However, the story does not end here.

The new Vanquish offers a revised version of the existing V12 with 576 HP and 630nm of torque. Now, it accommodates a brand new 8-speed automatic transmission called Touchtronic III. And only needs 3.8 seconds to reach 100 km/h with the top speed of 324 km/h! For a GT car, 324 km/h is a very serious speed!

In addition to these, the interior offers lots of touch sensitive buttons and new knobs! It feels like a new car and also seat ventilation is now available. And unfortunately, you have to adjust your steering-wheel manually. Because, the electric steering-wheel adjust costs lots of money to develop and adapt to regulations. And again unfortunately, Aston Martin still offers a CD player! That’s a retro technology.

Just ignore the all negative bits, Aston Martin uses the same platform and engine for more than a decade and manufactures cars on similar platforms. What does it mean? They have a great know-how about their cars and each new car is an improved version. Similar Porsche 911 or Mercedes G-Wagon, Aston Martin is becoming a company that is improving the same for decades and decades. That’s not a bad thing! You will be a buying a perfection (almost).

Should you go and buy an Aston Martin instead of a Ferrari or Lamborghini or Porsche 911 Turbo S? I think yes. Because, Aston Martin became more unique and exclusive. People don’t prefer Aston Martin, I mean the people who are trying to show off. They would be saying, Aston Martin looks the same for last one decade and they can’t show off your wealth. And that’s why you should an Aston Martin! But please don’t rev-up the engine when you are in city centre!

W-One Aston Martin Dealer

http://www.astonmartin.com/en/the-company/locations/w-one

Aston Martin Vanquish

http://www.astonmartin.com/cars/the-new-vanquish/vanquish-technical

Tags Aston Martin, Vanquish, W-One London

Cars

Aston Martin Lagonda | Four-Door and Bespoke

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date July 26, 2014

Aston Martin is going to release Lagonda! Four-door bespoke, super high performance sedan. And Lagonda will be only available to Middle East, because they can afford to buy! Similar to One-77 project, Aston Martin Lagonda will be very limited and exclusive.

I am assuming, the engine will be based on the existing V12 engine and it may share the same platform with Aston Martin Rapide S. And I am wishing that Lagonda will not have any resemblance with the Rapide S or any other existing Aston Martin model. However, based on the photos the front-end of the Lagonda will not be that different than the Rapide S!

From the left side, Lagonda looks really nice and I can clearly say, it is planning to compete with Bentley FlyingSpur, Porsche Panamera Turbo S and some of the Mercedes AMG models. As Aston Martin did not release any spec details, I cannot say good or bad. However, based on their existing technological abilities, Lagonda may not offer the same state-of-art technology like a Porsche or a Mercedes. Don’t expect Lagonda to stop by itself and give you a back massage!

Photos Credits

Aston Martin

Tags Aston Martin, Lagonda

Cars

Autosport International #asi14 | Gulf Racing Aston Martin

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date January 14, 2014

On this year’s Autosport International 2014, iconic Gulf Racing featured their Aston Martin Vantage GT2, LMP1 and their MAN truck.

Tags Aston Martin, Autosport International, Autosport International 2014, Gulf Racing, LMP1, Vantage GT2

Cars

Aston Martin Vanquish Footage from 2007

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date December 9, 2013

Aston Martin Vanquish official video from 2007. A few days ago, Aston Martin uploaded this video to their YouTube channel. And there is nothing wrong with that. Until you watch the whole video. I am not talking about the quality of the video, HD quality was not that common during those years.

However, the content of the video seems like, it is from 1997! The words and the angles of the cameras fit perfectly with the 1990s.

Unfortunately, since that time nothing really changed with Aston Martin cars. Still the same angle and the same design. However in those years, it was more than enough.

Photos Credits

Aston Martin

Tags Aston Martin, Vanqui

Cars

Aston Martin Cygnet is Dead

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date October 1, 2013

Aston Martin Cygnet is dead! Today Aston Martin officially announced their decision to stop making Cygnet model. Honestly, I am bit sad with this news, despite all efforts tiny Cygnet could not keep up with its older siblings.

Since the Cygnet was revealed, it never managed to achieve any success or respected by the consumers. Aston Martin first announced that, Cygnet will be available to existing Aston Martin owners and they changed their mind and then they change their mind again. Because, it was based on Toyota iQ without any technical modification and didn’t have enough money to replace the Toyota details.

Honestly, it was obvious mistake since the beginning. Aston Martin tried to reduce their fleet emission level by cutting corners and did not manage to reveal a proper luxury small car. Actually, luxury small car market is immature. MINI Inspired by Goodwood version managed stay in dealers to attempt world record. Their demand is so niche and so weak, manufacturing is not a feasible option.

Now, Cygnet will take its place on Aston Martin’s history as a failure from the beginning. I am sure, the small luxury car market will expand in future as the younger generation who loves to play with iPhones gets older. However, wrapping up a Toyota iQ was not a very reasonable solution to reveal a luxury product.

If Bentley produces a small Bentley based Volkswagen Polo platform, it will be the right time!

Actually, I liked the Aston Martin Cygnet. It was a very cute car but its fate was not that bright. And I am really happy to see it in real life.

Tags Aston Martin, Bentley, Cygnet, Inspired by Goodwood, Mini, Toyota, VW, VW Polo

Cars

The Best Looking Car at Night from the Rear-End

Post author By Uygar Kilic
Post date September 15, 2013

Cars at night, here is the photo of the supercars with their tail lights at night. BMW Z4 is not a supercar but I have no idea how it ends up on this list. And also, I really wonder why there is no McLaren and Jaguar. I am definitely sure that, both of these brands look fantastic at night.

The list starts with Lamborghini Aventador, Aston Martin One-77, Ferrari Enzo, Maserati GranTurismo, Bugatti Veyron, Porsche Carrera GT, Audi R8, Mercedes McLaren SLR, Nissan GT-R and BMW Z4. The best looking car at night is Aston Martin One-77!

Tags Aston Martin, Audi, Aventador, BMW, Bugatti, Carrera GT, Ferrari, Ferrari Enzo, GranTurismo, Lamborghini, Maserati, Mercedes, Nissan GTR, One-77, Porsche, R8, SLR, Veyron, Z4