Aston’s Excellence

Photos by Aston Martin
Written by Nicolas Bates

Aston Martin is undeniably one of the world’s top producers of luxury supercars, but it cannot be argued that a good majority of their cars can be classified more as luxury than “super.” Until recently that is. The 2012 Aston Martin One-77 is still a car with downright luxury (don’t get me wrong), but with the raw power to back up a “supercar” title. This super rare creation of Aston Martin’s will have an extremely limited number at seventy-seven, and reportedly only 10 were left as of April 2011. Now that’s what I’d call a collectors car…

The One-77 has a stunning exterior, partially due to its stance—only 6 inches short of an H2 Hummer. Its long, sleek body is reminiscent of other present Aston Martins, but through design, they have made it very clear that this particular model is far more special. Then again, any car with a body shaped out of one block of aluminum is pretty damn “special.” With a length of 181”, there are longer cars out there, but with its wheels pushed out to the front and rear as far as possible, the car looks to have an extremely long wheelbase. As noted above, it is particularly wide. The rear looks immensely intimidating and sleek, with its wrap-around tail lights and rear diffuser. The front end will retain the well known and appreciated front grill. Because, let’s face it: An Aston Martin isn’t an Aston Martin without its oval grill. For the chassis, a carbon fiber monocoque design was used, and keeps weight to roughly 3,500 lb. for the car.

The get-up-and-go parts of the One-77 include a behemoth naturally aspirated 7.3-liter 48-valve V12 (derived from Aston’s 6-liter motor) that is capable of pushing out 750 horsepower and 533 ft/lb of torque (now confirmed by Aston Martin). Aston’s standard 6-speed sequential transmission takes care of all the shifting, and allow the car’s wheels to take the car up to a top speed of 220 mph, and will get the car from a standstill to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds. With such a possibility of massive forward inertia, the One-77 has been outfitted with ventilated carbon ceramic discs with six-piston calipers in the front, and four-piston in the rear.

The suspension on the One-77 is quite advanced, and features Dynamic Suspension Spool Valve (DSSV) technology, where the system “is a pure 4-way damper featuring independent high and low speed valves for control of both bump and rebound, and includes linear indexed adjusters, matched from damper to damper to optimize the symmetry rating across each axle.” This allows the suspension set up to be changed, without actually having to remove and change physical parts. Sounds expensive, does it not? You’d be correct in assuming so.

The One-77, at only seventy-seven production vehicles being made, will be one of the most rare Aston Martins to be produced. No doubt they will be hard to come across, even if you do have the $1.4 million to purchase one (I suppose that DSSV suspension really was expensive). And even the folks with the dough may be holding out, as you cannot test-drive one straight from Aston Martin. Given the number of vehicles left in April (10), apparently to many, that was not an issue at all. Keep your eyes peeled for British history with the elusive One-77.

For more info go to:
AstonMartin.com