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New Aston Martin Vanquish Volante arrives – costs £200k

The New Aston Martin Vanquish Volante (pictured) costs £200k It’s almost exactly a year since the Aston Martin Vanquish arrived as a replacement for the DBS, and now we get it’s convertible sibling – the new Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. Aston are claiming the new Vanquish Volante is the stiffest Aston convertible ever and have also managed to keep the usual weight increase for a soft top down to just 9kg by giving the Volante a full carbon fibre body. The result of that is the Volante manages to produce exactly the same performance figures as the Vanquish Coupe – 0-62mph in 4.1 seconds and 183mph – from its 565php, 6.0 litre V12 and shouldn’t, we hope, shake and shimmy in the way many Aston convertibles do in the process.

James Bond Aston Martin DB5 sells for £2.9m

The famous James Bond Aston Martin DB5 sold last night at a London auction for nearly £3 million. American businessman Harry Yeaggy paid £2,912,000 ($4,608,500) for the 1964 DB5 driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger and Thunderball. The 007 DB5 is best known for Q's gadgets, including revolving number plates, rocket launchers and an ejector seat.

Ford Motor Company design chief J Mays to be based in London

J Mays, Ford Motor Company group vice president for design, will be moving from the US to London in February and adding a new title: Chief Creative Officer. The new posting will allow Mays to work more closely with designers at Ford's Premier Automotive Group, including Ian Callum at Jaguar, Geoff Upex at Land Rover and Volvo's next design head. He will spend about 10 days a month in Dearborn with the North American design team.