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Get lost in Evo's sublime 2013 Car of the Year testing

Every year Evo stages its Car of the Year test, bringing the best performance cars in the world to one location for an epic shootout. This year the magazine pitted eight CotY finalists against each other on Route Napoleon in Southern France - Evo claims it's the "best road in the world" - and then proceeded to nitpick the smallest of faults on each car until the winner could be named. You see, this year's lineup of machines was just so good that only one car obviously wasn't CotY material from the get-go. Can you guess which one judging from the list below?
- Aston Martin V12 Vantage S
- Audi R8 V10 Plus

Mercedes to offer SL, GL platforms to Aston Martin?

The agonizingly slow courtship between Aston Martin and Mercedes-Benz has been a regular topic of conversation ever since the 2009 Lagonda Concept debuted, riding on a Mercedes GL chassis. Beyond that one polarizing concept, though, nearly every other attempt to pair the two brands up in a major way has fallen through. Only the technical partnership between Mercedes and Aston for certain components from AMG, which was negotiated back in July, has held up so far.
That may finally be set to change, according to an excellent profile of the two brands' relationship from Automobile, which claims that two platforms will unite the Germans and Brits. The first tie up is, not surprisingly, a sports car.
As Aston Martin's VH platform - which underpins every car that comes out of Gaydon - continues to age, the pressure will well and truly be on Aston to find a next-gen replacement to underpin the successors to the Vantage, Vanquish, DB9 and Rapide. Automobile claims Mercedes has just such an architecture, in the form its new modular sports car platform. This new platform is slated for the next-generation SLK and SL and is still in its design infancy.

Here's Aston Martin's DP-100 racer for Gran Turismo in all its virtual glory [w/video]

After a little bit of teasing, Aston Martin is finally unveiling its Design Prototype 100 Vision Gran Turismo Concept at the Goodwood Festival of Speed that makes it into Gran Turismo 6 in July. With the DP-100, the company's designers have gotten a chance to shrug off the shackles of realism and create the first-ever Aston Martin "road car" with the engine mounted behind the driver. Designed and engineered over the course of six months by the Aston Martin Design team, the crew started from a clean sheet of paper and were allowed to design whatever they liked with no concerns about production feasibility. At the front, there's the brand's classic grille shape, but otherwise the concept is completely original. The shape of the DP-100 is beautifully simple, looking like a collection of intersecting arches in profile. Of course, in Gran Turismo 6, gamers are going to want to race the car more than look at it. The DP-100 employs Aston Martin's famous V12 engine coupled with two turbochargers to produce 800 horsepower. Active aerodynamic aids keep it planted during cornering, as well. Aston Martin previously hinted that it might show off a physical version of the concept at this year's Goodwood Festival. Although, we haven't seen it yet, the concept would fit perfectly next to Nissan's own Vision Gran Turismo design at the celebration of all things automotive. Scroll down to watch a video of the DP-100's designers talking about the car and read the official release. ASTON MARTIN UNVEILS VIRTUAL DP-100 RACER FOR GRAN TURISMO®6 Design Prototype 100 joins stable of Vision Gran Turismo racers in popular racing game for PlayStation®3 Designed and engineered over six months by Aston Martin Design team Downloadable for in-game play in July 2014 Aston Martin is unveiling an exceptional new addition to the hugely popular PlayStation®3 exclusive racing game Gran Turismo®6 (GT6™) in the shape of the stunning Design Prototype 100 – DP-100 Vision Gran Turismo. Developed in-house by the Design team at Aston Martin, led by Design Director Marek Reichman, DP-100 Vision Gran Turismo is a new, virtual-only GT racer that will be available for Gran Turismo®6 (GT6™) owners to download in July 2014, following the global launch at Goodwood Festival of Speed. Starting with nothing but the traditional 'blank sheet of paper' the design team and design engineers worked for six months to create the new addition to the Vision Gran Turismo stable of race cars.