Great Britain, great cars. The UK motor industry is respected the world over, and though many of the vehicles are actually owned by foreign manufacturers, there can be no doubting of the fantastic heritage of the British motor.
To celebrate Britain’s famous history CarSupermarket.com is launching a series looking back on some of the most famous vehicles the UK has ever seen.
Aston Martin DB11
Never one to over-indulge their fans with a raft of different models and generations of motors, Aston Martin prefer instead to launch a car once a decade, watch, wait and see the car gain legendary status. It’s a tried and tested formula which has served the British manufacturer well over the many years.
Aston Martin’s most recent launch came in 2016, when the DB11 was launched as a successor to the DB9. You might ask where the DB10 fits into the chronology of the DB range? Well those who know their history will know that the DB10 remained purely a concept for the 2015 James Bond film, Spectre.
The DB11 was designed and engineered by Yorkshire-born Marek Reichman, a man with an impressive history, including the Aston Martin One-77, the DBS, the Rapide and the Vanquish. Reichman also worked on the Rolls-Royce Phantom and was the man charged with the task of putting 007 into an Aston Martin in he aforementioned DB10.
So what did we get from Reichman’s DB11? Well it continued the tradition of 1:3 design proportions and included for the first time a number of roof strakes which helped separate the body from the roof. Perhaps the most eye-catching feature of the new DB11 design was the ‘Aeroblade’ intakes at the front of the vehicle, these sat below a single ‘clam-shell’ design piece of aluminium which made up the bonnet.
Thus far we have seen two variants of the engine, the 5.2 litre V12 produced in-house by Aston Martin, and perhaps controversially an early version also housed a 4.0 litre Mercedes-AMG V8.
The critics loved the DB11, and perhaps the harshest critic of them all, Jeremy Clarkson was fulsome in his praise for the DB11 saying: “If you're ever in Paris, at a party at 3am, and suddenly remember you are playing in a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo the next afternoon, this is the car for the job. You'd arrive feeling like you'd just got out of the bath. It's not just a pretty face. This is an extremely good car. Phenomenally good. But there is a price to pay."
That price was a little over £150k on launch, which may seem excessive, but for a car that was voted the most beautiful car of 2017 and can travel at speeds of up to 200mph then it’s worth arguing you get what you pay for.
Years of manufacture: 2016-present
Price when new: £154,900
Price now: £154,900
Engine: 5,204cc 12cyl petrol, 608bhp
Top speed: 200mph