Aston Martin set out to do one thing really well, and with the DB11, it has.
I generally despise first-person car reviews. Particularly when the vehicle in question is expensive, or fast, or both, these stories can quickly devolve into oily billets-doux of the writer's preternatural giftedness behind the wheel.
Or, worse, they become obnoxiously self-deprecating confessionals of their doubtful worthiness in the face of such blinding automotive majesty.
So it is with no small amount of consternation that, after stewing over the Aston Martin DB11 for weeks after driving the car, I have decided to approach my take on it from the shameless first-person perspective.
The DB11 costs £154,900 in the UK ($211,995 in the US) and there is nothing sensible about spending that much on a car, and very little point in making sensible comparisons with other such moments of conspicuous consumption - fuel efficiency and cargo capacity and such.
For a buyer with the means and the motivation, there is nothing I could possibly write that will dampen enthusiasm for the DB11, short of revealing that it was assembled by gruel-fed orphans in a Dickensian workhouse.
And even that, for some, would merely add to its Anglo-mystique.
Candidly, I find it difficult to contain my open admiration for the car, which is poor motoring journalism, at best.
I am inordinately fond of it, all of it, and that makes presenting a balanced, consumer-serving review really tough.
This is not a vehicle that inspires cross-shopping or Top Trumps-style stats-mashing, except by fantasy-garage types who either can't afford the car or aren't old enough to drive it.
With deference to James Bond, who for 50-odd years has employed Aston Martins as work vehicles, these are not cars designed to serve any real purpose beyond pleasure.
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