Aston Martin #03

Niche car manufacturers like Aston Martin never enjoyed a peaceful life - the fragile sports car market is pretentious and forever changing. Adapting to such an unstable environment is difficult for any sports car manufacturer, whether we're talking about Ferrari, Porsche or Aston Martin. However, the British company has bright plans concerning their future, plans well supported by the current range of Aston Martin models. The three main pillars that ensure Aston's success are the DB9, the V8 Vantage and the V12 Vanquish. Let's have a quick look at each of these fantastic cars.

Equipped with the most powerful engine in any Aston Martin production car, the V12 Vanquish is a technical marvel and a work of art, all at the same time. The Aston V12 Vanquish benefits from a aluminum and composite body, electronic traction control and throttle, a formula-one style six-speed gearbox and all the latest gadgets one could think of. The 5.9-litre V12 is a real "Porsche killer" as many called it. However, the price of the Vanquish is of $220,000. This model was discontinued early in 2007.

The DB9 is equipped with a 6.0 L 450 brake horsepower (335 kW) V12 engine borrowed from the Aston Martin V12 Vanquish. The DB9 is a direct competitor of the 911 Turbo model from Porsche and the F430 Ferrari. According to Wikipedia, Aston Martin will be revealing the DB9 LM along with the DBS and the V8 Vantage N400 in the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show. The DB9 LM commemorates Aston's GT1 class victory in the Le Mans 24-hour race in 2007.

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage has a 4282 cc engine, producing 380 hp (283 kW) at 7,000 rpm and 302 lb-ft (409 Nm) at 5,000 rpm. The V8 Vantage engine is assembled manually at the Aston Martin factory in Germany and is based on the V8 engine from Jaguar. The performance of the V8 Vantage is excellent, with a 75 mph - 280km/h top speed and a naught to 60 mph time of under 5 seconds.