ASTON MARTIN VALOUR

ASTON'S MOST EXCLUSIVE CLUB HAS A GLORIOUS V1I2 MANUAL

- ANDREW FRANKEL

IT'S NOT often I find myself grateful to be stuck in a traffic-jam. But if some kind soul had not pulled out of a side road without looking and not then been biffed by the next car to come down the street, Stow-on-the-Wold would not have ground to a halt last Tuesday and I'd have stayed grumbling in heavy Cotswold summer traffic, following Aston Martin's official route.

Had it not been for that minor collision, then, I'd have never turned off at the first available opportunity, nor then found myself on one of the best and quietest roads that part of the world has to offer. And I might never have found out just how good the Aston Martin Valour really is.

I'm now going to indulge in a spot of idle speculation and invite anyone from Aston Martin to tell me I'm wrong. But for one person, I don't think the Valour, nor its track-tuned Valiant sibling would exist. And what is curious is that this person does not work for Aston Martin. He is, instead, the customer who asked Aston to build him a one-off car, based around an old One-77 chassis as a modern homage to a unique racing Aston that competed at Le Mans in the late 1970s.

The car that resulted was the Victor, but the crucial component of this tale is that despite its rumoured $8m price, he was kind enough to let a handful of hacks have a go in it. And when confronted with a car that looked stunning, and that used a V12 engine to drive the rear wheels through a manual gearbox, we all went nuts for it. Indeed the only thing we hated was the fact that there was only one.

It seems we were not alone. For as soon as Aston's better-heeled customers read about the Victor, they wanted it - or something quite like it too. And the Valour is the result.