I was driving along a lovely bit of road, somewhere in deepest Oxfordshire. The A40 was boring me to tears, so I’d turned off to take a more inter­est­ing route home. The road twisted, turned and undulated beneath us. Alas it did so very slowly, because the traffic ahead was moving at a rather leisurely pace.

Eventually the road opened out into a long, clear straight. I looked in my mirrors to make sure I was clear to overtake and was disap­poin­ted to see one of the cars behind me had reacted quicker.

It was something quite small, low-slung. Something expens­ive. Something distinctly Aston Martin shaped.

It was quiet until it drew along­side me. I had my window open, so I got the full effect of that beauti­ful V8 howl as it exploded past. The noise made the hairs on my arms stand on end. It painted a grin across my face. Within a few seconds it was gone, that wonder­ful noise echoing across the countryside.

That alone must make up a fair amount of the enorm­ous asking price.

A bit further up the road, I changed down and overtook too. My little 1.6 VTEC Honda sounds nice enough, but it’s just not in the same league.