Driving James Bond's Aston Martin DB10 From 'SPECTRE'

Ask any car enthusiast about “bucket list” items and you’ll get a pretty consistent series of activities. Participate in a professional race event. Personally experience the top speed of a supercar. Lap the Nurburgring. Drive the Batmobile (the original 1960s version, not any of those bizarre monstrosities from the later films). I still have to do all of those things, but I did get to check mark one major bucket list item recently: Drive a genuine James Bond movie car.

If you're a Bond aficionado you probably know the secret agent's history of cool rides better than your kids' middle names. I'm a certified 007 fan, and there's a long list of classic James Bond cars I’d gladly tangle with Oddjob to drive, but the one I drove recently is a future 007 icon, the Aston Martin DB10 starring in the new “SPECTRE” movie.

When the good folks at Aston Martin offered me seat time in this screen star I pictured a stunning body wrapped around a cardboard interior and powered by a 6-cylinder engine that topped out at 43 mph. If you're familiar with movie cars you know this is how many of them perform (or don't perform) in real life.

Happily, I was wrong. The Aston Martin DB10, one of ten built for the movie (and one of only three to survive the shooting process), is as much a supercar in real-life as it appears to be on screen. It's smaller than your average Aston Martin coupe, but the sleek body lines and large 20-inch wheels give it as much presence as the brand's top-end Vanquish.

This is the first time Aston Martin has produced a model specifically for a Bond film, and while it's not an official production car many of the DB10's design cues are likely to appear on future Aston Martins. Sam Mendes, director of the new SPECTRE movie, worked closely with Aston Martin Chief Creative Officer Marek Reichman to create the DB10's super-spy style.

The design was inspired by a shark and features the lowest “nose” ever seen on an Aston Martin vehicle. It’s also got a full clamshell hood, removing all shutlines while giving the DB10 an exceedingly clean appearance. And unlike other modern Aston Martins, the grille is placed below and behind the leading edge of the hood, adding to the car’s sharp profile.

The hood's "vents" aren’t vents at all, but small holes located exactly where they need to be for maximum engine cooling. Aston Martin's designers used heat mapping to identify each hole's location. Under the coupe's sloping hood is an Aston Martin 4.7-liter V8 hooked to a six-speed manual transmission. The combination provides enough power to hit 60 mph in 4.7 seconds. After a short familiarization period, and assurances from Aston Martin the car was capable of real-world abuse, I spent several hours experiencing its full acceleration, braking and handling capabilities.

The DB10 wasn't quite as refined as a full production Aston Martin, and a few minor features, like functional gauges, air conditioning and working side windows, were absent. But its power, precision and capable dynamics kept me highly entertained, as did fantasies of chasing down super villains while out-manuevering low-level baddies.

The full interior included two comfortable, leather-covered seats with excellent side bolstering. There was no way to adjust them, but apparently Daniel Craig and I are similar in size, because the car fit like a glove. There was even an array of gadget buttons along the center console, including one labeled “fire” I was specifically told not to push. If you watch the video you can see a "Caution" label near the exhaust system, suggesting you really don't want to press that "fire" button...

The movie SPECTRE premiers in U.S. theaters on November 6th, and while I'll be as anxious to see it as every previous James Bond film I'll feel an extra level of excitement when the DB10 makes its big screen debut. It's not everyday you can look at 007's car and say, "Hey, I've driven that!"