Aston Martin down under

MR Bond, your next car is ready.

The concept Aston Martin DBS which James Bond rolled in the latest film, Casino Royale, has been unveiled in production form at the Pebble Beach Concours Elegance, California.

Aston Martin Asia/Pacific marketing and PR supervisor Tomoko Ihara said the first DBS in Australia would arrive in the first quarter of next year.

“We have advanced orders from several customers in Australia,” he said.

However, Ihara said the price would not be released until the car was revealed at next month's Frankfurt Motor Show.

The flagship two-seater is claimed to be set between the DB9 and the DBR9 track-only car.

Worthy of a Bond car, it is powered by a 6.0-litre V12 producing 380kW of power, a top speed of 302km/h and a 0-100km/h time of 4.3sec.

It features a lightweight carbon-fibre, aluminium and magnesium body; 20-inch wheels; high intensity discharge headlamps and LED rear lamps; rear-mid mounted six-speed manual gearbox with limited-slip differential; Pirelli P Zero tyres (245/35 and 295/30); an adaptive damping system with track mode; and large ventilated carbon ceramic disc brakes with six-piston calipers.

Inside, the DBS gets a Bond-style leather-upholstered cabin with iridium silver centre console, carbon fibre door trims, sports seats with 10-way electric adjustment, hard disk drive and a boot-mounted umbrella.

Now that James Bond is a non-smoker, the ashtray and cigar lighter are an optional extra along with lightweight seats with six-way adjustment (no electric heating), 20-inch alloy wheels with graphite finish, piano black facia trim and centre console finish, leather storage saddle, personalised sill plaques, auto-dimming interior rear-view mirror and comprehensive first-aid kit.

The DBS will be built at Aston Martin's global headquarters at Gaydon, near Warwickshire in the UK. It joins the other models in the line-up: DB9, V8 Vantage Coupe and Vantage Roadster launched earlier this year.

There are five Aston Martin dealers in Australia including Sunshine Aston Martin on the Gold Coast.