Aston martin

It’s all-too easy to get bogged down in the never-ending list of reasons that owning a car in the UK is a hellish endeavour. Whether it’s the soaring fuel prices or the mass emergence of potholes, I empathise. However, I am happy to report that, after attending a classic meet hosted by the newly started Cobham Car Club, an appreciation of car culture is very much back at the wheel. Down in Surrey one April weekend, crammed into the car park of Leatherhead Golf Club, were more than 140 cars and dozens of motoring enthusiasts. Gathered together were a mix of old classics, such as a 1962 Aston Martin DB4 in a beautiful burnt almond or the 1981 Porsche 924 Turbo in a bright red.

I once read that after watching a James Bond film men speed in their Honda Civics: they might do 35 mph in a built-up area. If this is so, it is due to the Aston Martin Bond has driven since 1964 (the DB5 in Goldfinger, a man with 'a cold finger'). The DB5 has appeared in six Bond films so far; and some kind of Aston Martin has appeared in twelve Bond films. Is it, I wonder, contemplating Bond’s internal wasteland of sex addiction, murder and laundry, the only real home he ever had? Is it his wife? When the DB5 was revealed in Skyfall, waiting calmly in a garage, it seemed it was. The face of Bond – he is named after an ornithologist - may change.