We all love a great GT, says Jethro. Trouble is, no-one wants to buy them
@JethroBovingdon
NAILING THE PERFECT GT CAR SEEMS JUST about the most impossible task in all of motoring. We all love GTs, don’t we? Or at least the idea of them. Elegant, sophisticated, quietly powerful, possessed of vast power from mighty, big-cube engines and capable of easing away all the mundane troubles that life can deliver. A great GT makes you feel special when you catch sight of it, as you slip into its sumptuous cabin, when its engine wraps you up in its cultured sound and when it’s spearing across vast distances. A great, unstoppable force granting freedom and escape. Oh, plus it’d be cool if it turns into a sports car when your mood and the road demands it. And rides like a Citroën DS on a road paved with fluffy cartoon clouds.
We’re not asking much, then. I guess it’s possible to nail this far-reaching brief. Maybe. But even if a manufacturer finds that most elusive of magic formulas, it’s likely that it still won’t quite be enough. You see, the GT – the true gran turismo – is a fantasy. Literally. Anyone who’s read car magazines or is just steeped in all things motoring has a wistful notion of floating down to the south of France (it’s always the south of France), gently cruising beside the shimmering Med with an impossibly glamorous partner and then, later, screaming up and down the Route Napoléon with Loeb-like car control.
Plus, we want our GT to have certain qualities and ingredients. Ideally it should be front-engined and rear drive. It should have a V12 wherever possible. It should be restrained but beautiful and imposing. Not too showy, mind, yet palpably expensive. Sounds about right, doesn’t it? And irresistible. The reward for making this fantasy come true – or even getting close – must be unimaginable riches and staggering success.
Only… erm, nobody seems to actually want a GT. They come and go. Some stick around for years selling in tiny numbers. Manufacturers who built their entire business on the dream of the GT stumble from one financial crisis to the next. While supercars and hypercars go from strength to strength, the GT has moments of hope, quickly followed by reality setting in and sales bubbling away at the bottom of a chart. If the definition of madness is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result, then the car industry is truly, unwaveringly insane. None of us can quite let go of the dream.
It seems that Aston Martin has recognised this inesc
