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Aston Martin Valkyrie does a tantalizing lap of Silverstone

The Aston Martin Valkyrie performed a low-level fly-by at Britain's Silverstone Circuit during the Formula One Grand Prix weekend. The lap marked the first public demonstration of the future paterfamilias of the Aston Martin range, after months of digital modeling and time in the simulator. Aston Martin test driver Chris Goodwin didn't drive the 1,160-horsepower coupe in anger, but he did touch the throttle with some emotion. Regrettably, video of the event lays music over the far more redeeming Cosworth V12 soundtrack, but we do get a taste of what's to come. Thing is, "Top Gear" visited Cosworth in December last year to get some face time with the 6.5-liter V12. Toward the end of the video, Cosworth ran an engine dyno simulation of the V12 going hard through the first sections of Silverstone. Oh, the sound. Oh, the fury. Combine that with the sight of the car cruising the circuit, and know that something wicked this way comes.  If you want to know just how serious the team behind the Valkyrie takes the brief, presenter Jack Rix said Red Bull F1 aerodynamics guru Adrian Newey stopped by the shop to look at the finished product, after two years of development. Newey tapped the lacquered carbon fiber intake manifold cover, then asked Cosworth how much the lacquer weighed. When Cosworth told him "130 grams," Newey looked disappointed. That response turned into offering Valkyrie buyers the option of having the engine's carbon cover with or without lacquer. In American terms, this is much ado over 4.6 ounces, or a McDonald's Royale with Cheese.   With deliveries scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, Aston Martin has a packed program of validation testing for the car, called Verification Prototype 1. After that come competition entries into the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).

1965 Aston Martin DB5 Convertible fetches record $2 million in Paris

Aston Martin and Ferrari may occupy similar territory in the current market for new cars, or at least overlap, but when it comes to their respective classics, they're in different leagues. While some classic Ferraris can sell at auction for eight figures, the highest prices ever paid for classic Astons work out to seven. That makes this latest result something of a world record. At its recent auction, held at the Grand Palais in Paris during the Retromobile classic car show this past weekend, venerated auction house Bonhams sold a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Convertible (one of just 35 left-hand-drive models made) for the equivalent of $2.14 million. That makes it the highest price ever paid for a production DB5 - coupe or convertible - in the history of automobile auctions, driving the most successful automobile auction Bonhams has ever held in Europe. It was not, strictly speaking, the most ever paid for any Aston, however. That honor, according to Sports Car Market, goes to the 1955 DB3S racer that Gooding & Co. sold for $5.5 million at Pebble Beach last year. Nor was it the most expensive DB5 (modified or otherwise), after the highly modified one from the James Bond movies Goldfinger and Thunderball sold for $4.6 million back in 2010. This latest record easily eclipsed other production DB5s, though: The most we'd ever seen a standard model sell for was $1.65M at RM's auction in Monterey last year. Other high-priced Aston auctions include a Zagato-bodied 1960 DB4 GT "Jet" ($5M, Bonhams 2013), another DB3S ($3.7M, RM 2012), a '57 DBR2 ($3.4M, Christie's 1985), a Ghia-bodied '56 DB2/4 ($2.3M, RM 2013) and a series of DB4 GTs that have gone for between $2.2 and $2.7 million.

Jay Leno drives James Bond's new Aston Martin DB10

With only ten examples made exclusively for use in the latest James Bond movie, the Aston Martin DB10 is exceedingly rare. So we counted ourselves as fortunate to have seen one up close at Pebble Beach this past summer, and another on a recent visit to the UK. But Jay Leno has done one better. For the latest episode of Jay Leno's Garage, the former talk show host and consummate car collector had Aston's design chief Marek Reichman stop by with one of the DB10s built for the filming of Spectre, which will hit theaters in just a few weeks. Reichman and company actually let the denim-clad celebrity drive the thing on the open roads around his warehouse. That's something that only a few people (namely Daniel Craig and his stunt doubles) usually get to do. Fortunately, Leno being the world-class showman that he is, he and his crew caught the whole experience on video, and you can see the results in the sixteen-minute installment above. Of course this isn't the first Aston that Leno has had by the garage and driven. Nor is it even the rarest, for that matter, having previously hosted the one-of-a-kind CC100 speedster concept almost exactly two years ago. But as far as harbingers of things to come, the DB10 will likely go down in history as a turning point for the company, which is on the verge of launching a whole new lineup based on new architecture and components and with a new design language previewed by the vehicle you see here. Related Video: