The Dawn

It has happened. aston MartIn has gone all new. wIth It coMe turbos, electrIc steerIngs and drIvIng Modes. ready?

- Sriram Naranyanan

How do you keep in touch with a person who isn’t active on social media? You can’t make out what’s going on in their lives. Their Facebook wall is empty. They don’t post anything on Twitter either. And chances are, they think Instagram to be some trendy name for the local telegraph office. Such people are also the last to know of the latest news. Because while the rest of the world gets instant updates on personal feeds, these bizzare individuals read about it in the next day’s newspaper. So, if you have to get through to them, you have to make some effort. Like pick up your phone and make a call. Or at least, send them a text message or an email.

It’s the kind of effort you needed to make with an Aston Martin. Despite all the iconography, all that James Bond, and the might of the entire British motoring press cheering for them, here’s a fact, Astons were old. How old? If you’re currently graduating from college, then you might just have been in kindergarten the last time Aston came out with something all new. Since then, the Vantage, the DB9, the Rapide, the Vanquish, all used one platform, one architecture and – apart from a V8 for the Vantage – had one 6.0-litre V12.

The insides were ergonomic nightmares. The Vantage had a handbrake lever to the right of the driver, near the door. The Rapide’s door handles in the cabin were so neatly flush with the door, you’d struggle to find it. And all of them had that clockwise and anti-clockwise speedo and rev meters that seem to be carved out of a block of metal. They were not easy to read. But did they look lovely.