My Aston Martin

I am getting a new Aston Martin a few years after I parted from my DB9. This one is a DB12 Volante, a cabriolet that combines tangibility and functionality. By “tangibility” I mean the human desire to touch an object of exquisite beauty. The Volante is such a creature.

I shall spare you its technical details because I never buy a car based on functionality alone, so I rather like the way the company portrays this car: “The world’s first Super Tourer. This is no mere GT. An icon reborn and reinvented. Smoothed and chiseled into the shape of a Volante and given free rein to cut through continents, erase expectations and completely redefine the open-top category. This is DB12 Volante.” Also, because we don’t sit between engines and gear equipment and what not in front, nor in the luggage compartment behind, I want the interior of the car to offer me something worth having. Here again, I like the way Aston Martin describes the Volante: “Duetting with analogue and digital finishes. An interior wrapped with technology. Every corner obsessively hand-stitched in hedonism, swelling every sense with state-of-the-art infotainment and a specially tuned surround sound system.”

I wouldn’t go big on the sound system because drivers should use their eyes and not their ears while at the wheel in an airconditioned car with the windows drawn. It is perfectly normal to be overwhelmed by the soul-stirring notes of Pavarotti’s Volare – who is not? – but not if the song takes the mind off the need to watch out for errant motorcyclists and suicidal food-deliver riders on two-wheelers, some of whom have their own ear-splitting sound systems turned on. So, I listen to music carefully when parked. When I drive, I drive.

Overall, the interior of the Volante suits my preference for taste as one of the coordinates of my life.

Cars reflect the personalities of their owners. Loud and garish car colours speak of upstarts and parvenus who want to be noticed when, as we know, the best way to stand out in a crowd is to be, not a part of the crowd but to stand just outside it. Thus, the very thought of winning a maroon Mercedes as a lottery prize throws me into dark existential despair, although I have no quarrel with owners whose destination might differ from my way and has led them astray. The colour of my car will be discreet and subdued, a bit like my personality, but it will exude individuality and choice. Like me, it will speak softly to the passing crowds. Like me, it will be unassuming and unobtrusive.

But like me, it will pack a punch behind its charming exterior. I do not intend to cross continents with it: Singapore will do. I respect Singapore’s public transport system, but a car affords the owner the luxury of deciding where he wants to go and whenever the fancy catches him. I cherish that freedom. That is what made me own my previous Aston Martin.

Let me see how this car performs

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