T isn't every day you can reach into God's toy box and
choose whatever you want - but the opening of P1
North gave me exactly that opportunity.
Since being founded by F1 World Champion Damon Hill
and his business partner Michael Breen seven years ago,
the prestige and performance car club has been allowing
its mainly Southern members to pick and choose from a
garage of the world's most exciting cars.
Now it has opened a branch in the North West with an
initial selection of cars worth more than £1 million and I
was lucky enough to be able to sample one of them in
Lancashire.
I walked past rows of gleaming machinery - a mighty
Ford GT, Ferrari 430s coupé and convertible, a variety of
Porsche 911s Turbo, even a stunning Bentley Continental
GTC. But I headed for the ranks of Aston Martins, lurking
in rather a discreet fashion at the back.
I have to admit to a soft spot for the Vanquish, the
modern equivalent of Sean Connery in a DB5 - a thug in a
dinner jacket - and the new V8 Vantage is quite possibly
the most beautiful car in production today. But the sun
was shining and a drive along Lancashire's Riviera
beckoned so I asked Nick Bailey, P1 North's affable
General Manager, for the keys to the DB9 Volante.
It just felt right to be driving a car as urbane as the DB9
Volante as I headed through an early morning Southport,
listening with ever greater amusement to the impressed
noises coming from our resolutely southern snapper, who
wasn't expecting Southport to be 'as nice as this…'
The Aston's 450 bhp V12 was purring away happily in
front of us, as civilised as the daughter of a couple of
Essex brawlers, made good and sent to a Swiss finishing
school. That isn't quite as tortured an analogy as you'd
think when you discover the V12 was created by bolting
two Ford Mondeo V6s together. Through the traffic, I was
happy enough to leave the gearbox in D, selected by a
button on the dash rather than a gearstick, leaving what
Jeremy Clarkson scathingly refers to as the 'flappy
paddles' alone until the road opened up.
Heading out of Southport towards Lancashire Police's
HQ at Hutton didn't seem to be the most sensible place
to stretch the Aston's legs either but the gentle cruise did
show the Aston's gait at its most fluid, the car loping
along in the sunshine in a seemingly effortless way.
Roof down, the buffeting was perfectly acceptable at
these sorts of speeds, and the traffic through Preston, as we
headed inland to cross the Ribble, gave a chance to admire
the finer points of the interior. The dials are based on the
faces of upmarket watches and glow in an exquisitely
expensive way. The leatherwork is fine and it is only the
minor details, like the rather jarring Volvo satnav and the
electric motors in the hood mechanism that whirr in a way
that gives you little faith in the prospects of their longevity,
that leave you wondering whether a few more months in the
development cycle wouldn't have been well spent.
In Lytham, the car seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and
it felt like the residents reciprocated. Most ostentatious
cars draw less than appreciative receptions from passersby
and other road users but the Aston seemed to be
immune from this. It is just so handsome, and in gunmetal
grey, so quintessentially English that it garners nothing but
friendly nods or even thumbs up. The only negative
reaction I got all day was one of obvious disappointment
from the girl who nearly cricked her neck to see who was
being photographed next to it.
As we headed through Blackpool, the thumps in the
road showed up the only small fly in the DB9 Volante
ointment - that of scuttle shake over sharp bumps in the
road. As the low profile tyres hit a transverse ridge or
pothole, the whole car judders in a way that a Bentley
Continental GTC, or even the far cheaper Jaguar XKR
doesn't. That said, you would have to be a motoring
journalist, or I suppose a member of P1, to be able to
drive cars like this back to back in order to notice the
difference.
Out of Blackpool and the road finally opens up across
Cockerham Moss. A couple of paddle-operated
downchanges are briskly delivered with perfect automated
blips of the throttle, the valves in the exhaust open and the
old girl fair throws herself down the road. It's not quite as
bad as asking a dowager to jive, but it does still feel
somehow inappropriate.
As we pulled up in front of the Stork Pub in Conder
Green for a well deserved cold drink and a sandwich at
the most northerly part of our drive, opinions are still
divided as to whether the car is worth its £115,000. But
there is no denying its beauty.