RUNNINGS

Y HARRY KIRSBAUM
//1 \

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRETT MOUNTAIN

7'

r--

Car by Aston Martin, $169,870; tuxedo
bv Calvin Klein, $800; toilet paper stuck
on shoe, priceless.

Martin. Aston Martin.

might look like a waiter, but I feel like Bond. James Bond. You would
too if you had your hands on the 2005 Aston Martin DB9.
The Aston Martin was forever linked to Agent 007 in the 1964
movie Goldfinger and except for a brief three-movie stretch in the
1990s when Bond drove BMW cars, the Aston Martin returned to its
rightful place in 2002's Die Another Day.
Put simply: As fine a company as BMW is, James Bond shouldn't drive a car
that I can buy off a car lot.
The DB9 takes 202 hours to produce by hand, and only 1,400 are produced
each year. The quality shows in every detail.
From the leather interior made of cowhide raised in Scotland's Bridge of
Weir region (where no barbed wire exists to mark up the hides), to the nine
coats of paint and the 25 extra hours it takes to hand finish the paint, this is a
work of art, inside and out, as sleek and beautiful as it is powerful. Turn the

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OCTOBER 2005 • JNPLATINUM

