Not just sexy. Romantic too.
Value has two faces. The one better known is basic, common, practical. It offers much, costs little. It’s an easy buy for the masses.
The other visage is more exclusive. It turns away from the ordinary in passionate pursuit of power, beauty and soul. It seeks to distinguish itself from its own class. It costs much. But its patrons see only its virtues, not its expense. In that regard, it is value as oxymoron -- the priceless available to a special few for a price.
It is the difference between a Timex watch and a Jaeger-LeCoultre, a Holiday Inn anywhere and the classic Victorian beauty of the Hotel del Coronado here. It is the difference between a sports car commonly defined and the 2005 Aston Martin DB9 coupe, which is its own definition of that motorized genre.
“It is seeing something or someone for the first time and instantly recognizing that thing or person as special, extraordinary
It is customary in discussing exotic sports cars to compare their road performance with those of similar vehicles: Which has the best straight-line acceleration from 0 to 60 miles per hour? Which has the most horsepower (a measurement of the engine’s ability to do a specific amount of work over a given amount of time)? Or which has the most torque (the amount of twisting power exerted to turn the drive wheels)?
Such topics are great fodder for car-guy debates. But they ultimately miss the underlying value of a car such as the DB9. That talk is the moral equivalent of high school boys discussing sex. It bypasses romance, destroys poetry, ignores art -- all of which are part and parcel of what makes an Aston Martin an Aston Martin and a DB9 a DB9.
To understand, you have to spend time looking at the DB9 in the manner of examining a sculpture. Notice the exterior chrome molding around the side windows. It appears to be one continuous, flowing piece, free of cosmetic joint caps or, worse, visible seams at the corners.
The same design affects the interior window arches, left and right, running from the front-window pillars to those in the rear. There are no joint caps, commonly used in cars in all price ranges. There are no visible seams. The result is the appearance and feel of an art piece elegantly shaped from one piece of metal on the outside and formed, at least along the roofline, from one material in the interior.
Then, of course, there is the driving, in which the most notable thing about the DB9 coupe is its perfect weight distribution, 50% front, 50% rear. Add to that the DB9’s super-rigid bonded-aluminum body, and you get a tight rear-wheel-drive car that handles so well you easily are tempted to test and exceed the limits of your driving ability.
It is best not to yield to such temptation inasmuch as no car available at any price, not even one engineered to meet the toughest safety requirements, can save you from yourself in all circumstances, or overcome the immutable laws of physics.
The attraction of power, such as the peak 450 horsepower from the DB9 coupe’s 6-liter V-12 engine, is knowing that it’s there if you need to use it. Actually using it requires a certain amount of caution and discretion.
There are other cars -- from Porsche, Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz (maker of the 617-horsepower, $450,000 SLR McLaren super-coupe) -- that can run faster and harder than the DB9. But they tend to be more concerned about hard-charging performance than anything else, enjoyable in the manner of a hard-fought rugby match.
I much prefer dancing -- spending an evening with salsa, samba or tango. There is just as much sweat in such movement, but the experience is more enjoyable, memorable -- like driving a DB9 along a beach road in Coronado at twilight.
