Aston Martin One-77: 750bhp

The Aston Martin One-77 will deliver 750bhpAston Martin has revealed that the naturally aspirated, 7.3 liter V12 engine in the Aston Martin One-77 will develop 750bhp & 553lb/ft of torque.You expect a lot when a car costs £1,150,000 plus tax. So the Aston Martin One-77 needs to be special. After all, at that price, you can have your pick of any current car. The best that Pagani has to offer is there on your shopping list and, although your £1.15 million may not quite stretch to a Bugatti Veyron Supersport, it’s damn close.

But when it comes to winning hearts, Aston Martin has a head start on this in the looks department. It is the most glorious of the crop of Hypercars the world’s car makers produce.

Yes, there is an elemental lust for the technical marvel that is the Veyron. You can feel the heart and soul of Horacio Pagani in every Zonda that hits the road, and the stealth fighter visage of the Lamborghini Reventon certainly stirred a few souls. But none look as good as the Aston Martin One-77.

Thankfully, the naturally aspirated 7.3 litre V12 engine in the One-77 also looks as if it will be not just be a beautiful creation, but a powerful one too. Aston Martin has revealed that the One-77 will develop 750bhp and 750Nm of torque (that’s 553lb/ft in old money), making it the most powerful naturally aspirated engine in production.

Aston are saying that deliveries of the One-77 aren’t going to start until the New Year, but our contacts tell us there will be cars reaching lucky customers before then.

Liberal Petrolhead. Oxymoron? Not any more

Vince Cable gets behind the wheel of an Aston Martin DBSDr Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, visited Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin yesterday. And it looks like he had a fine old time.With the Liberal / Conservative coalition now in charge we seem to have got a Government where a big chunk of the ministers are Liberals (is there a Liberal MP without a portfolio of some description?). Which I suppose is the price we pay for allowing the Conservatives to become Labour Lite instead of having real conviction politicians. Still, it throws up some interesting conflicts.

One of those conflicts is seeing staunch Liberals extolling virtues – and policies – they clearly don’t believe (it also works the other way round). So with a Liberal Business Minister in Vince Cable (who is at least a Government Minister with real-world business experience. A rare breed these days. In fact he may be the only one other than Philip Hammond) we were sure to see lots of ‘Environment’ issues to the fore, even if he did have to ‘promote’ policies to the right of his own views.

Which is exactly what we got in the press releases we’ve had in after Vince went out glad-handing our car industry yesterday. Or at least the posh bits in Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin. We heard all about the great work Jaguar is doing with the XJ Limo Green and the wonderful support they get from Government grants to push forward the boundaries of ‘Green Technology’. The usual claptrap.

Vince Cable - Eager to get behind the wheel of a Jaguar XKR

What caught our eye though was not the worthy prose in the press release but the photos Jaguar and Aston Martin sent us of the Minister and their motors. We got a photo of Vince grinning as he was let loose in a DBS Convertible and looking extremely eager to get behind the wheel of a more than warm XKR.

How nice to see a politician – especially a Liberal politician – showing his real feelings about wonderful cars instead of the normal ‘toe-the-line’, po-faced rhetoric about planet-wrecking extravagances.

Blimey, that’s two politicians in the current cabinet who aren’t ‘Stepford’ politicians. What’s going on?