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1965 Aston Martin DB5 Shooting Brake: Rare, stylish, practical, and up for auction

Have you ever looked at a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 and thought, "I would totally buy one, but it's just not practical enough." If so, we're a little surprised, but at least you're not alone. According to RM Sotheby's, David Brown, the man who ran Aston Martin for several decades and started the line of DB models that continues today, felt similarly. Apparently he couldn't fit his polo gear into a regular Aston coupe, and he wanted somewhere for his dog to sit that would keep it from tearing up the seats. As such, the Aston Martin DB5 shooting brake was created for him and a few wealthy customers by coachbuilder Harold Radford. The grand total was 12. One of those 12 cars is going up for auction by RM Sotheby's. It's one of four built with left-hand drive and was sold to a Swiss buyer who optioned it with a power antenna, seat belts, passenger-side head rest, air horns and initials on the doors. The car has had two other owners and has gone through a couple restorations. The second owner picked it up in 2003 and had it restored by Aston Engineering, which bumped the displacement from 4.0 liters to 4.2 and replaced the factory automatic with a 5-speed manual. The second owner acquired it in 2009 and upped the displacement even further to 4.7 liters along with upgraded shocks and springs. The car will be auctioned at RM Sotheby's Monterey event during the week of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. The company expects it to sell for between $1,000,000 and $1,400,000. Considering the rarity of the car, that doesn't seem terrible, but according to the Hagerty price guide, it's rather high. It values the DB5 Shooting Brake at $790,000 for a concours-quality car. For reference, Hagerty values a concours-quality DB5 coupe at $1,450,000.

2020 Aston Martin Vantage Road Test | Old-school road trip in a new-school Aston

Our roads may be virtually empty, with Americans all cooped up and nowhere to go. But with jet planes and TSA lines looking iffy and icky for the foreseeable future, the great American road trip is poised to reclaim its preeminence in travel. To test that post-pandemic theory, in a purely theoretical way, I requisition a 2020 Aston Martin Vantage for a daytrip from New York to the Catskills. It’s the kind of high-character “import” sports car that once defined the breed, before corporate imperatives watered the character down. AstonÂ’s two-seater is nakedly beautiful, flawed-yet-fabulous, and expensive as hell. But if you drive the Vantage and donÂ’t fall head-over-loafers, IÂ’d accuse you of not caring for sports cars at all. ItÂ’s as alive and engaging as any sports car out there, a 509-horsepower firecracker that rewards skilled drivers – or dings them for mistakes – in defiance of the trend toward all-wheel-drive automatons. As for the Catskills, itÂ’s in the midst of its own explosive comeback. This rough-hewn mountain region, a convenient two hours north of Manhattan, was once the prime vacation destination of the Northeast, so popular in the late 19th century that a 1,200-room luxury hotel was required just to gaze at some waterfalls, with guests including U.S. presidents and Oscar Wilde. Through the 1950s and 60s, it continued to be the pipeline to nature for Jewish families and other northeast tourists. Their summer camps and sprawling “Borscht Belt” resorts and nightclubs mythologized in films like Dirty Dancing and now televisionÂ’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which has fetishized Catskills nostalgia to a truly marvelous degree. Then came airline travel, and affordable tickets to Miami Beach and other exotic warm-weather locales. Like a Palm Springs of the east, the Catskills fell into steep decline. The region became a punch line of corny kitsch. As with Palm Springs, fashion has come full circle: The Catskills and adjacent Hudson Valley are red-hot again, rediscovered by Brooklynites especially as a magical spot for affordable second homes, or permanent moves to open farm-to-table restaurants, curated antique shops and other bastions of rustic hip. The Vantage lures me from coronavirus lockdown like a movie idol waving outside my Brooklyn window, for a cannon-shot recon run to Woodstock.

Aston Martin creates custom Vanquish series in smooth carbon

In a demonstration of just how extensively it can cater its vehicles to the customer's specific tastes, Aston Martin has done up a special series of Vanquishes at the request of an individual customer. Carried out through the Q by Aston Martin customization service, the Vanquish "One of Seven" edition is distinguished by its unique carbon-fiber bodywork. The order required Aston to develop a new manufacturing process to weave the fibers in multiple layers for a perfectly smooth finish. The resulting exposed carbon bodywork is complimented by satin black trim, custom diamond-quilted seats, and machined carbon logos, for a complete Darth Vader, murdered-out look. As the name suggests, only seven examples will be made, with the first delivered to one Markus Storck, head of high-end bicycle manufacturer Storck Bikes. The remaining examples will be delivered to "six fellow sports car aficionados." Related Video: Q BY ASTON MARTIN CREATES A UNIQUE VANQUISH COLLECTION - Seven bespoke sports cars commissioned by collector - Carbon fibre-themed personalisation pushes manufacturing boundaries - Painstaking process to design, engineer and build the luxury models 1 June, 2015, Gaydon: The Q by Aston Martin bespoke personalisation service is celebrating the fulfilment of a longstanding ambition for sports car enthusiast and businessman Markus Storck. Dr Matthew Bennett, General Manager of VIP sales and Q by Aston Martin personalisation service, delivered the first of seven uniquely built Vanquish Coupes to the German collector at an event held at the luxury marque's headquarters in Gaydon. Mr Storck, founder and head of German hi-tech bicycle manufacturer Storck Bikes, commissioned the Q by Aston Martin team to develop the special 'One of Seven' Vanquish sports cars for himself, and six fellow sports car aficionados. Boasting a broad array of bespoke features including an exclusive exterior finish that sees multiple layers of carbon fibre cleverly interwoven to a perfectly smooth finish – a result that required Aston Martin to develop an entirely new addition to its manufacturing process – the seven Vanquish are sure to become collectors' items in years to come. Matthew Bennett said: "The process of creating these sports cars has been typical of what Q by Aston Martin can deliver.