This Aston Martin was so good we actually wanted to buy one

Hollis Johnson

Sometimes, a car just takes your breath away — in every imaginable way.

It's even better if this experience is totally unexpected.

This happened recently with our transportation team when we checked out an Aston Martin DB9 for a few days. The DB9 isn't exactly a new car — it's been around since 2003. The formula for this grand tourer is quite simple and involves two parts. Part one is a gigantic V12 engine stuffed under the hood. Part two is an abundance of suave, British tailoring.

Because what we have in the DB9 is effectively an English Corvette, minus the bone-crunching redneck Vette associations — they've been replaced with the requisite infusion of James Bond, which makes sense as Mr. Bond has always been an Aston man.

Honestly, we weren't expected to be so thoroughly captivated by the DB9. With "only" 510 horsepower, it's left in the dust, on paper, by several competitors these days. But massive horsepower can be a mere number; it's in the way that you use it, to borrow a line from a famous English guitarist.

And the DB9 uses all its horsepower to perfection. All while looking so, so, good. I've had a lot of sexy cars in my driveway, but the $200,000 DB9, in a striking red paint job, stopped more than a few folks in their tracks as they strolled by.

Photos by Hollis Johnson.

The DB9 was designed by Henrik Fisker, and although its debt to the classic Jaguar E-Type is obvious, in red this car has more curb appeal than should be legal.

What does it look like when every angle, swoop, line, and curve on a car is right? It looks like the DB9. More recent examples of this genre — the 2+2 GT coupe — can come off as burly and over-muscled. But not the DB9. A believe me, it's very hard to be this gorgeous without expending seemingly any effort.

This is not an angry face. This is not a serious face. This is a purposeful face.

The front-end proportions are completely in balance: headlights, hood width, grille, aerodynamics. The Aston badge is also refreshingly modest. This all enables you to focus on the best feature of the car's hood, which is how looooonnnggg it is. This is a hood that announces a car with a forceful fanfare that never threatens to go out of tune.

The badging on the rear is low-key ...

So it's a DB9. Not a DB7.