1982 Aston Martin Volante Is Determinedly Obscure

From the March 1982 issue of Car and Driver.

You can drive around these United States all afternoon and half the night, in almost any neighborhood you choose, and never cross the tracks of a single Aston Martin. Or you can take one of the few Aston Martins extant and drive it under the nose of any citi­zen you come across, and be pretty sure he won’t even notice. Of course, this combina­tion of rarity and obscurity costs a bunch of money. Your basic Aston Martin two-door will run you $97,000 these days, maybe just a bit more when the 1982 prices are finally firmed up. Or if you prefer your obscurity served with wind in your hair, the Volante convertible is $115,000.

Clearly, we’re not dealing with any old or­dinary form of obscurity here. Aston Martin has taken obscurity beyond the automotive pale and right up to a fine art. This is the Howard Hughes of motorcars. Everybody has heard of the Aston Martin—hey, isn’t that the James Bond car?—but nobody knows what one looks like.

We’re talking the perfect bank robber’s es­cape vehicle here. The witnesses would draw a blank. “Uh, well, it was sorta chunky look­ing, ya know, with real shiny paint.” That’s one good bank-robber reason. Another is that the witnesses wouldn’t have much time to draw their blanks, because Aston Martins run like scalded Peterbilts. We say “Peter­bilt” because of weight—about 4100 pounds for the Volante convertible—and “scalded” because the last one harnessed C/D road­ test instrumentation (June 1980) did 0 to 60 mph in 7.8 seconds. Emission requirements seem to have slowed the current model somewhat, but it’s still faster than any legit highway-patrol cruiser in the country.

Such speed seems a bit less remarkable once you’ve had a look inside the engine room. A 5.3-liter, all-aluminum V-8 with four overhead cam and four Weber carburetors has to be good for something besides decoration, although it’s certainly a decorative piece from every angle. Power output, in the Rolls-Royce tradition, is unspecified.

There haven’t been many mechanical changes in the car since we drove it last: mi­nor revisions to the front suspension, includ­ing new springs, shocks, and bushings, is about the full length of the list. But the com­pany that makes the car—Aston Martin La­gonda, Ltd., of Newport Pagnell, England—has undergone a pretty substantial over­haul. Once again it has been pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy, this time by a man named Victor Gauntlett, who traded a dump-truck load of cash for half ownership. Given that Gauntlett made his money in the oil business, investing it in the production of gas guzzlers does not seem entirely inappro­priate. And given that the Volante’s price has been raised $35,000 in two years, it’s appar­ent that Gauntlett does not intend to pro­duce gas guzzlers at a loss. Apparently he doesn’t have to. The market seems happy to soak up the factory’s annual production of 250 cars, 60 of which disappear into the U.S.

The Aston Martin is a gentleman’s sportster of the sort they don’t build ’em like any­more. It’s old, based on the DBS introduced at the London Motor Show in 1966. It’s big—about the size of a Corvette—and notably hefty. And it’s meticulously hand-built: the body is hand-formed aluminum fitted over a steel understructure with just a buffer of lin­en between; each engine is assembled by one guy who then affixes a plaque with his name on it to the cam cover; and all the seals are made—and have been for some years—by the same man, who selects the hides himself and whose wife does the stitching. Cars like this aren’t built anymore, because almost no­body can afford them.

Those who can afford them get what they pay for—a car that, despite its obscurity, has plenty of personality. It’s unwieldy in traffic, coming into its own only out on the road, where you can appreciate its high-speed poise. The V-8 rumbles, the power steering has exceptional feedback, and the suspension handles uneven surfaces with aplomb. You can hurry in this car. Its front engine location puts the transmission right under the lever for solid shifting, and the pedals are just right for heel-and-toeing. All of this mechan­ical directness trimmed out in fine wood and leather and blanketed by a six-figure price is probably deservedly obscure. There can’t be many who would buy such a car.

Most rich folks bent on such inconspicuous consumption buy a Chevrolet instead and put the rest in a sock.

Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com