First the end of the Land Rover Defender and now this: the end of the road for the Aston Martin DB9. A whippersnapper on comparison with the Landy, the Aston’s 12 years pale into insignificance alongside the staggering 67 the Defender will have clocked up by the time the last one is made it its current iteration this December. But the DB9 has nonetheless become as much a totem for its maker as the Land Rover.  From this September the new, and last, DB9GT - a coupe and a convertible - will be the only DB9 Aston will sell you. Not that it’s any hardship; it adopts both the interior design and engine from the more modern Vanquish, so more luxury, more logic and more power. But it keeps the exterior design, which can in this case justifiably be called “timeless”. It was first introduced in 2003 but looks every bit as handsome today as it did then. It was, and still is, one of the world’s most elegant and most beautiful modern motor cars, its appeal possibly dulled only by its familiarity - there are around 16,000 of them out there.  But the new GT is undoubtedly the best yet. I’ve long-ago got over being irritated with the idiosyncratic and often illogical way the “classic” DB9 controls work and besides, they have at least always looked beautiful and delicate. The new interior console, lifted from the Vanquish along with its rather lovely touch-sensitive glass buttons, is another generation ahead and works as you would expect in a modern car, as does the touch-sensitive screen. The extra 30bhp from the down-tuned Vanquish engine meanwhile won’t make the DP9 significantly faster, but 540bhp will always sound more appropriate than 510bhp from a six-litre V12.  There are minor detail changes to the exterior (bits of extra carbon here and there) and standard 20ins wheels, but the big picture introduced last year - with headlamps from the short-lived Virage and boot-lid from the legendary DBS - remains unchanged but for the new DB9GT badges.  The DB9 heralded a new era for Aston Martin in 2003. Safe (finally) under the roof of Ford’s ambitious Premier Automotive Group (PAG), the DB9 was built in a new factory, in a new manner, which meant it could provide structural mitochondria from a new range of cars; the two-seat V8 Vantage, the DBS, the Rapide etc. Thirteen years on it still is, but that was never the plan; the crash saw Ford divest itself of its PAG portfolio and Aston’s roof once again looked leaky.  Now that that period is behind it, next year will see the launch of a new DB9 (it won’t be DB10 as that is James Bond’s one-off ride in November’s Spectre) with a new turbocharged V12 engine and eventually a new Aston Martin-modified Mercedes-AMG V8, which will become a key engine for the company. The technology-sharing arrangement with AMG is just one of a raft of changes at Aston Martin, including new management, new funding and a over-riding sense of optimism.  This weekend Goodwood Festival of Speed will see the public debut of the Vulcan track-car which promises to be a visual and aural highlight. In November, Bond will climb aboard that DB10 and the “New DB9” should be around (at least for us to see) in the first quarter of next year. It won’t go straight in to production - there’s another year left in the original DB9 - but the announcement of the new GT will hopefully mean its predecessor's retirement is less of a hardship for us to bear.
As the iconic car retires at the end of this year, Michael Harvey pays tribute to an astonishing motoring success story