Aston Martin, long version

On Sunday, saffie1981 and I went to the Aston Martin factory at Gaydon, as per my last post. I'd never been to a car factory before, and it was a fascinating experience. The lines were stopped, but all the cars were in place, part-built. The tour route had been organised so you followed the production lines, and could see things being assembled in order. Then, in a neat convergence, the fully-assembled powertrain line merges with the body line, with either convertible or coupe bodies being dropped onto the powertrains as they came in. The trays of many many different nuts, bolts, bits and bobs were bewildering.
Then, in a degree of precision I'd not expected from a hand-built car, there was a room where the bodies get measured in hundreds of different places to make sure they were correct.
Finally, as shown in the picture in my previous post, I got to sit in the driving seat of an Aston for the first time. The cockpit was more... 'snug'... than I had been expecting - I had thought it would be expansive and intimidatingly large, when in fact it felt very much like I would want it to. The seats, of course, leather and very very comfortable. Sadly no key in the ignition. ;-)

Now I just need to wangle a way to drive one...

I took some photos. Because I'm currently vacillating between linking to them on my website and Flickr, you can have both:

Photos on Photonhunter
Photos on Flickr

Catnip

Flash movie below:

[Youtube]