if you had the money....

Personally I would go for the Vanquish, although there is still not much room back there.

 

Aston,pls.

 

uh... well I'd pick the Vanquish IF it was a 2+2, which it isn't. Therefore, I'd pick a 612 scag.

 

Good to hear from you Ross! Unless you will be transporting amputees the Porsche Turbo and Aston should be out of the question. Neither rear seat is very usable. I'd vote for the 456 because I don't take your qualification that money is no object seriously. I've been reading your posts too long to believe that! Good Luck.

 

There is a 2+2 version of the Vanquish.

 

Really?! That's awesome! Never seen one.

I retract my smarta$$ remark and vote for the 612.

Vanquish all the way baby!

 

Aston for me

 

I've got a thing for scags.

 

The scaglietti

the Vanquish rear seats are a joke.

 

Aston.

 

Who does the wife want to put in the back seats?
If your young kiddos, then I'd go with Porsche Turbo.
If adults or large kids, then I'd go with the 612 Scaglietti.

 

I would go for a TDF blue 456 GT/M. (I wouldn't be interested in the automatic transmission)

 

I had have to make a hard choice between the 456 and the Aston.
And not the 612, its amazingly ugly!!!
But i think i would buy the Aston and sell it for a 575.

 

Well, I'm amazed at the support for the Aston Martin.

Where I come from they are considered crap!, or close to, ie. a car you buy if you want to see it occassionally between fixing all the stupid English poor build quality and lack of control.

Remember the same country built the 80's Jaguars with the same stupid Lucas electricals, and same reliability record. Gee any Italian car is considered reliable against an Aston.

I guess Ford may have fixed all that, but I would not touch a pre-Ford Aston with a barge poll. Recently in a Classic Car magazine they discussed the Aston Martin v8 engine and its design and it was close to laughable. The first 2 engines suffered conrod failures and block cracking. They then tried to race them in Lola T70s at Le Mans and both cars failed in the first few hours with the SAME problems.

The designer Tadek (I think) then had somebody else (ie. a REAL designer) redesign the block and this cured the block falling to bits.

They also talked to a guy that used to make them originally, and now rebuilds them and he mentioned that the valve seats were really too soft and thus caused maintenace issues and this was NOT fixed until the Vantage model ... after many poor suckers had bought these pieces of ****.

Otherwise a great engine

So if you want to buy into that heritage go ahead, but I have never understood the lust many have for Aston Martin. I guess many like that under engineered (renamed hand built) feeling that early English cars had and they did finally win Le Mans in 1957!

I just hope that Ford has put a body on top of Ford mechanicals and the original Aston rubbish is long gone. Note the Aston DB7 (I think) has a Jaguar XJS floor pan because they were too cheap to design and make their own. Hardly a great car to start with.

Anyway out of the selection I would choose the 456 GT (but manual please, no slush boxes in real cars), with the Bentley being the next best (and now well engineered thanks to VW) but too much for me. Having now seen a 612 Scag, it is not quite as ugly as the pictures suggest but IMO will never match the grace and style of the 456.

Pete
ps: Out of ALL nationalities the English definitely have proved over and over again that they fail miserably at the car making business. Excluding minor car making nations such as Yogoslavia (sp?), English cars kept many car repair garages in business. Now the Japanese cars have taken over maintenances schedules are 4 times longer and engine rebuilds are infrequent.

My fathers garage used to thrive on rebuilding Rovers, Triumphs, Jaguars and Hilmans.

They maybe able to design F1 cars that win occassionally but their cost cutting engineering has me steering well clear of English cars.

 

And what about the Bentley Coninental GT?
Personally i like this car more than a Porsche Turbo or an Aston Martin
It doesn't look so fast as a vanquish or a turbo but i would like to see a race between them, to see who's laughing then.
(But offcourse the're not italian)

 

The Aston is a kit car. Ask any AMOC club member.

Get a used 456 GTM and pocket the $100k bath someone has already taken. These are all production cars that they will make too many of. They will depreciate like stones. Run away or buy used.

 

I voted for the 456M, but would rather have the earlier version with the daytona scoops and of course would select a 6-speed. None of the others interest me.

 

i took the vanquish, i just love that classic aston grill.

 

If money were no object..............Buy 'em all!!!

 

I chose the 612 first but the Aston isnt far behind.

 

Only 60 are coming to UK and there's a waiting list of eager customers. Heard 18 mths being mentioned.