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2017 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S coming to US with manual

A few years back, the lovely Aston Martin V12 Vantage was available with an honest-to-goodness six-speed manual transmission. It was capable of instilling serious cognitive dissonance. "If I sell the cars, the furniture, and remortgage the house twice ..." That sort of thing. The package is back, in a sense. For the 2017 model year, Aston will produce the V12 Vantage S with a seven-speed manual transmission. And not the automated manual business supplied by Graziano, that has attracted my ire for being about as subtle as a kick in the pants. There's a human-operated clutch and a proper manual lever. It gets better, at least if you're a manual-transmission geek. Aston fitted a dogleg box to this car, meaning first gear is to the left and down, below reverse and where second gear would sit in a traditional H-pattern floor shifter. Less traditional is the throttle-blipping function, which will make downshifts smoother for those unable or unwilling to heel-toe. If AMSHIFT, which is Graydon's code-word for the system, is not your thing it can be disabled or used in any driving mode. More good news: there's no real penalty for choosing the manual over the Sportshift III transmission. The two cars are mechanically the same, offer the same performance metrics and top speed, and are offered at the same basic price. New for 2017 but not exclusive to the manual are many exterior and interior cosmetic options, like brightly-colored exterior accents, in line with Aston's recent styling trends. As the subtitle suggests, there is a serious catch for Americans. It's not that we won't get the V12-manual combination – we will! – it's just that there won't be very many of them. It'll be a no-cost option in the rest of the world. If you want one, let's hope you've stopped reading this article the first few lines and hopped on the phone with your local Aston dealer to get a place on what looks like a very short list. Related Video:

Veneno Roadster, One:1, One-77, LaFerrari, P1, Veyron headline 25-car Bonham's auction

Bonhams is holding a no-reserve auction in fall 2019 that includes some of the most valuable and sought-after supercars of the past decade. The lot of 25 beautiful collector items includes a Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, a Koenigsegg One:1, an Aston Martin One-77, a Ferrari LaFerrari, a McLaren P1, and a Bugatti Veyron. The collection, which was seized from a corrupt politician from Equatorial Guinea, is valued at roughly $13 million. If selling off future classics that are still in their infancy as collector items seems strange, it's because this is not a straightforward situation. These cars will be sold off by the State of Geneva, not a person. The collection was previously owned by the vice president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, but the cars were seized when he was placed under investigation for money laundering and unfair management of public interests. These 25 cars, which were located in Geneva, were first sequestered in fall 2016. A trial court ordered them sold off, and the money earned from the sales would be invested in social programs that benefit Equatorial Guinea. And so, Equatorial Guinea is about to see an influx of cash, as every vehicle is valued in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. The rarest might be the Koenigsegg One:1. One of only six remaining, it has 371 miles on the dial, and is valued at roughly $1.8 million. The Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, one of nine in the world, is a close second. It has 202 miles logged, and is valued at about $5.1 million. The Aston Martin One-77 is another rare bird. It is example No. 35 of 77, holds a 7.3-liter V12 engine, and is valued at about $1.4 million. A McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, and Bugatti Veyron 16.4 round out the top of the list. The remaining cars are not fully detailed, but they include examples from Mercedes-Maybach, Bentley, Maserati and Porsche. The auction will take place on Sunday, Sept. 29, at the Bonmont Golf & Country Club near Lake Geneva. For more photos and information, visit Bonhams.

World's Largest Collection Of James Bond Cars On Sale

A Miami real estate developer is selling his entire massive collection of James Bond memorabilia. Valued at $33.25 million, the collection is considered the largest in the world, and will only be sold to a buyer willing to take the whole thing. Michael Dezer began buying Bond cars in 2011, when he snatched up dozens of the super spy's on-screen rides from the James Bond Museum in Keswick, England, Autoblog reports. Since then, Dezer has amassed 59 cars, the rides coming from movies like Goldeneye, Skyfall and The Spy Who Loved Me. The ensemble also includes boats, tanks, jet skis, motorcycles and thousands of other pieces of memorabilia. The lucky buyer of this collection would even get the yacht used in From Russia With Love. An agency in the United Kingdom is handling the sale of the collection. Related Gallery Editors' Picks: The Most Beautiful Cars On The Road View 10 Photos Aston Martin Automotive History Ownership selling famous cars