>Mmm, nice. Sorta like the Scaramanga to Bond's Austin-Martin.

Aston Martin. Named for the company's founder, Lionel Martin, and Aston Hill in Buckinghamshire, where there used to be a hillclimb race until racing on public roads was outlawed in 1925. You may be conflating it with Austin-Healey, the sports car division of the old British Motor Corporation, which was named after Austin (one of the companies that merged to form BMC) and designer Donald Healey.

>(Of which I still have fantasies of owning one, but I've seen the price
>tags.)

Ironically, the DB5 is only so valuable now because of James Bond in the first place. They weren't really very good cars. Top Gear did a segment on the DB5 a few years ago; they got one down to their test track and determined that, by modern standards, it's absolutely hopeless. It's a very pretty car, but it was never particularly fast, nor did it handle all that well, and nowadays, well... it's really astonishing how much advanced technology is jammed into even the crockiest cheap compact car these days. Even your mom's Honda hatchback* makes a DB5 look like an ox cart in terms of suspension, brakes (oh God, especially brakes), and so forth.

On the other hand...

>I myself would peffer my Nissan Titan

... you would rather have a pickup truck than an SLS AMG.

Okay, I can see that if you're, say, a builder, or an antiques dealer, or in the business of delivering appliances. But under any other circumstances - and I say this as someone who has a pickup truck - I, uh, I don't see it.

--G.
*for metaphoric purposes; your actual mom may or may not own a Honda hatchback
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.