Aston Martin DB7. Dubai, UAE. In The Shadows

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Perhaps you remember our chat with Design Director for Jaguar Ian Callum at the Paris Motor Show. As well as the Jaguar F-Type (of which a couple of words were spoken), the Nissan R390 and the Jaguar XK are amongst his automotive treasure trove. Oh, and the Aston Martin DB7.

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Strange really that the meteoric rise to prominence the DB9 enjoyed in the early 2000s so emphatically cast the DB7 into the shadows: “yes, that’s all very nice and sleek, but here’s something shinier to look at”.

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But now time has passed, wounds are healing, and appreciation for the NPX Project (as it once was) is on the rise again. Taking a platform borrowed from sister company Jaguar’s XJS, the chaps in the Aston Martin t-shirts threw on a whole new, really quite stunning shell. The latterly named DB7 may, in another life, have become the Jaguar F-Type had the big boys at Ford not pulled the plug.

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Rounded and sculpted excellence but with a hint of aggression, there was some brute force intermixed with the DB7’s sleek attire. Appropriate, since Aston’s then new Oxfordshire branch (Bloxham) had also been the birthplace of the epochful Jaguar XJ220. Tom Walkinshaw and his team at TWR throwing their influence in once again.

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Unfortunately time may heal most wounds, but not financial ones. The economic crisis in 2008 swept through the UAE particularly harshly, and it’s not uncommon to see examples such as this left to fend for itself in sand pits/half-built car parks throughout the region.

Forever in the shadows?

– Our thanks to Rafik Jabbour