Built for espionage: the Aston Martin DB10

The name of the next James Bond film has been announced amidst much fanfare. But who cares about the film? Have you seen the car?!

After announcing that the 24th installment of the movie franchise will be called Spectre, director Sam Mendes lifted the veil off the new set of Bond's wheels that will undoubtedly be decked with high-tech spy gadgetry and involved in some dramatic chase scenes rife with bullets and explosions. The new Aston Martin DB10 looks sleeker and more suave than its predecessors, if that was possible, which have been the continuing object of affiliation between the British automaker and the 007 spy movies since the DB5 appeared in Goldfinger in 1964.

(Read also 007's and their Aston Martin's.)

Aston Martin describes the new car as "a model developed specifically for the film and built in-house by the brand's design and engineering teams". The automaker will only produce 10 of this and all will be used for filming; some, if not most, will probably come out of filming as wrecks. What a pity!

Although it’s not intended as a production car, though it looks more than road-worthy, the British marque did say that "the DB10 gives a glimpse to the future design direction for the next generation of Aston Martin's". In fact, insider news hint that this gives us a glimpse of what we can expect the next V8 Vantage to look like. 

The cast of Spectre

Of course, almost everything we know about the DB10 for now is merely skin deep (and what a looker it is too). The DB10’s panels are fashioned from carbon-fibre, a material that can be crafted quickly. Other specifications were not elaborated on during the big reveal (the cinema masses were probably more interested in the line-up of new Bond girls), but under that bonnet supposedly lies a 4.7-litre V8; not the latest for sure, for it is believed that Aston Martin is shifting towards turbocharged engines after its tie-up with Mercedes-AMG, while also working on a new platform which should be introduced in 2016.

Being the maker of the cars that escort Bond on his espionage adventures is probably one of the reasons why the name Aston Martin is still near and dear to many people’s hearts, but sales numbers tell a different story. The Gaydon-based automaker has been struggling in recent years and announced a pre-tax loss of US$41 million last year, having sold only 4,200 cars; although that sounds bad, it is actually an improvement from the year prior, when it sold 3,800 units. With a new CEO, Andy Palmer, on board and a five-year £500 million investment plan to return the company to profitability by 2016, we hope to see the centenarian marque return to its former glory soon.

image: astonmartin.com