Quote:
racerx said:
Ed you are splitting hairs at best.

As far as the 928, the best all-around performing and best looking gt ever built. IMO and J clarkson's too, the most influential person was tony lapine. I have forgotten more about the 928 than most people know.

Back to Aston, if you know what cars are for and have driven them hard in the real world, you would know that the CLOCK means NOTHING! Tenths of a second, a whole second means squat out in real life. Your rear-end will never feel the difference between 0-60 in 4.0 or 5.0. Who cares about lap times at the ring? just marketing exec's and guy's with little wee-wee's.

I suspect price has a lot to do with sales figures as I just checked moogle's new Vantage has a base of $132,000 vs. 86,200 for a 997 c2s.

But if price were not a factor most people would take the V8 over the 997.

Take Bez out of the picture and substitute "aston" for my use of Bez if you want.

My point is aston makes the most desirable gt cars in the world today under the leadership of ulrich bez, while porsche under wendell makes the same old thing and flops with a new design.

Bez was a top porsche exec while the 928 was in full production, wendell is the guy who ran porsche when developement and production of the 928 was canceled.

I suspect Bez like ferry, had some experience with the 928 while at porsche and continues to make front engined, low, wide, beautiful gt cars because they are the most satisfying cars on the road.



First I never said that the 928 was not a beautiful car. By my training and job, believe me that I understand a lot about car design. Second the opinion of Mr. Clarkson it is not the absolute just because he is the host of TG. He's wrong and subjective in almost anything he said and in the same time very show man more than real journalist. But this is not the subject of our discussion.

Under the Mr. Bez's command in Porsche was done the 993 it is true, and the 968 and the final GTS version of the 928 also, but he is not the designer nor has a training as a designer in fact his job is to see a final product and to approve it for production or not, and this together with a council... and so on. So if in that time where coming out nice cars from Porsche it is NOT Mr. Bez who made them, but more the look that the Porsche was searching in that time. At that time the person in charge of the design department was Harm Lagaay and the 993 was designed by a british guy called Anthony Hatter. Even form the 1992 in Porsche was made an announcement that the 928 and the 968 will be stopped the production at the middle of the year 1995 because the numbers they where selling this cars was so small that where not feasible at that time to build them anymore. And imagine something in that time the BMW850i and the Aston DB7 where just out on the market and even if today the 928 it is looking like an incon, then it looked really dated compared to this two cars. Everyone wanted the Beemer or the Aston but not the 928, another reason being the costs and the very old mechanics.

The actual trend in design in Aston Martin was started by Henrik Fisker with the very prototype of the Vanquish. And from that on all the cars have the family feeling of today models from Aston. And imagine what all the cars where made when Aston was still under Ford. So the final approval of the models has to come from Ford not from Mr. Bez...

Ok this was just an history to show you that I know what I'm talking about.

My point before was just that I don't understand you people starting already to call for the dead of the Panamera when the car not even arrived on the market, we did'n even seen the final look, and just comparing it with the Aston and there just because the Aston being so equal to the others we know how it will look. Don't you think that maybe because it is so continuous when the DB9 will not be sold anymore the Rapide will start to look dated? When Aston will chnage the family feeling of all the cars and with the last prototype (I don't remember where in the forum you cn find it) it seems that they started, the Rapide will look out of place, old and boring (it is nice but being soo much a DB9 it is allready boring)? Also did you knew that the first impression with the 928 when it appeared in the 70' was of disbelief and considered too wired, and too modern for it's own sake? And again what has Ason and Mr.Bez won? At this moment: NOTHING! In the future we will see but let's not call the end of it for a car that we didn't see it yet! And also everyone about cayenne said that the car is too ugly too expensive not a Porsche and they managed to sell double of the numbers targeted in a year. And I say it is [beep] ugly but this just shows that the looks alone don't sell, it has to be something more!