2003 Aston Martin Vanquish 2-door 6.0l - James Bond on 2040-cars

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Aston Martin Vanquish 25 by Callum begins Ian Callum's next act

In June, Ian Callum retired from his post as Jaguar's design boss. In July, the man with an elegant and luxurious public resume extending more than two decades started Ian Callum Design with a few former colleagues. Callum said the full-service design and engineering house would create and comprehensively upgrade vehicles, and that he'd "like to take some of the cars I've designed and maybe redo them a little bit." That initiative starts with the Aston Martin Vanquish 25, a thorough rework of the original Vanquish Callum built from 2001 to 2007, when Ford counted the English brand in its stable.  With the goal being to "make the Vanquish the Grand Tourer for the 2020s," the broad strokes remain — as it should be, seeing how much they still appeal. More than 100 overall detail changes begin with the redesigned front fascia, with a sharper-edged upper grille sitting above a larger lower intake. Projector headlamps give way to four high-intensity LEDs, and the lower fog lamps are replaced by carbon fiber vents to channel airflow to the front brakes. An "intimidating" mien starts with dark grille strakes supplanting the chrome bars of yore, the dark mood continuing with the one-piece carbon fiber window surround and carbon fiber hood vents and fender vent strakes. Gone are the scalloped sills, replaced by convex carbon fiber rockers that blend into the new curve of the lower rear fenders. In back, new taillights rest atop a new bumper that wraps around a large diffuser with integrated exhaust pipes. The cost-cutting Jaguar XK side mirrors — Ford owned Jaguar at the time, too — are gone, newly designed units with built-in turn signals taking their places.  When we drove a 2005 Vanquish in 2015, we wrote that while the greater part of the coupe held up to time, the interior did the opposite. Callum has fixed that, turning the original coupe's blocky, vertical center console into a sloping waterfall unit in carbon fiber. At the top of the center console, a removable Bremont pocket watch. Below that, no more Jaguar switchgear, but an eight-inch media display touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, carbon fiber buttons and aluminum dials. A thinner steering wheel and reshaped paddle shifters sit ahead of a dash cluster designed by watchmaker Bremont.  New front seats with deeper sculpting sit lower in the cabin, clothed in the same cross-stitched Bridge of Weir leather as the rest of the cockpit.

A pair of different but awesome Hondas star in the latest Forza Horizon 3 car pack

Forza Horizon 3's ever-expanding car list grows again with its latest downloadable car pack. This time it packs a pair of Hondas from opposite ends of history. In fact they use opposite drive wheels, too. The first, representing the modern day and front-wheel drive, is the previous generation, 300-horsepower, 2016 Honda Civic Type R. From the early days of Honda automobiles, and with rear-wheel-drive, is the 1970 Honda S800. It has substantially less than 300 horsepower. The Civic Type R isn't the only hot hatch in the pack either. The Vauxhall Corsa VXR provides a European counterpoint to the Honda, albeit a bit smaller. It features less power – about 200 hp in all – but should be an excellent match to the Fiesta ST. The pack also features a couple of high-dollar, high-horsepower machines in the form of the 2017 Aston Marin DB11 and the 2016 Cadillac ATS-V. Plus, for fans of older cars, there's the rear-engined Renault Alpine GTA Le Mans, and a Holden with a really long name: the 1985 HDT VK Commodore Group A. View 7 Photos As usual, the pack is included with the Forza Horizon 3 Car Pass. Or, if you don't have the pass, the pack can be purchased on its own. Related Video: Image Credit: Turn10 Studios / Playground Games Toys/Games Aston Martin Cadillac Honda Videos aston martin db11 cadillac ats-v forza horizon 3 vauxhall corsa

Aston Martin Vantage might get a Mercedes inline-six

Aston Martin has turned its eye to the inline six-cylinder engine Mercedes-Benz installs in the CLS 53. The British carmaker uses an AMG-sourced 4.0-liter V8 for the DB11 and the Vantage, which produces 503 horsepower and 505 pound-feet of torque in the latter coupe. Aston Martin hasn't said anything about whether or when it would use the inline-six, nor mentioned a product to slot the engine into. If the six does migrate from Germany to England, the move brings several benefits for Aston Martin, and it would create the first six-pot Aston Martin since the 1999 DB7. The 3.0-liter, AMG-built six-cylinder uses an electric turbocharger to put out 430 hp and 383 lb-ft of torque, and gets help from a 48-volt EQ Boost micro-hybrid system throwing in 21 hp and 184 lb-ft. After driving it at a Mercedes-Benz test track, Aston Martin's chief engineer Matt Becker called the powerplant "very complicated and clever," and said, "it's a very impressive engine" that he could envision serving the brand. The 2019 Vantage engine bay can already fit the company's in-house, 5.2-liter V12, so a straight-six shouldn't be hard to swallow. As for how it would fit into the lineup, there's a chance a six-cylinder Vantage supplants the V8. However, since Becker said his engineering team "would not necessarily play" with the AMG's power curves, that option would probably have to wait until AMG upped the three-liters' output. We'd be surprised if Vantage buyers would accept giving up two cylinders and 73 hp. More likely, a six-cylinder Vantage could give Aston Martin a new entry-level model to undercut the $153,081 Vantage V8, but with plenty of ponies to thrill. A V6 coupe could also help the carmaker's emissions scores, and serve specific markets such as China where engine displacements greater than three liters get hit with heavy taxes. Related Video: