Aston Martin One-77 review

Just approaching the One-77 is dramatic. Its haunches are mountainous and the way those intakes scythe into the headlights like a movie villain’s face scar is uniquely menacing. Half of the long door appears to have been sideswiped by an incoming comet, carving out a huge extractor vent in its fuselage.

Pop the flush door release, extent a leg over the thickset sill and drop down into the surprisingly firm seat. The door opens up a little in traditional Aston fashion, and all told access is no harder than in your average billionaire’s carbo-tanium hyperthruster. It shuts with ease, damped on a gas strut.

Drinking in your new environment, you’ll note there’s little sense of where the bonnet ends, most of the side mirror lens is filled with rear wheelarch muscle, and the rear-view mirror is basically a suspension-appreciating window. The car feels wide, brooding, and intimidating.

Inside, Aston could have just pasted in a Vanquish cabin with a few more carbon fillets and headed for the pub, but instead, they created a spectacle. They had to, because of the engine.

Viewed from under the bonnet where it lies restrained beneath the carbon brace, you’d be forgiven for thinking the One-77 ‘s motor is only a V6. Half of the gigantic powerplant is lost behind the bulkhead, completely aft of the front axle, and that had severe packaging consequences for the cockpit.

The designers had to taper the centre console outrageously through the interior to disguise the sheer mass of dashboard invading your personal space. It sweeps through between the seats and disappears up over the scuttle like a road heading for the horizon. Trim-wise, you could have any flavour of wood, leather or carbon you fancied – even turned or anodised metal was offered.

Like all Astons past and present, it smells gloriously expensive, as if they only trimmed it using cows that showered twice a day and wore designer aftershave. And the switchgear – all of it tactile, with touch-sensitive nonsense still mercifully a few years away – feels reassuringly classy. Even if the primitive infotainment system is about as impressive as a 2009-era smartphone.

Like the recalcitrant gearbox, it’s tech that dates the One-77’s cabin. The pop-up screen’s grainy resolution and TomTom navigation seem hopelessly playschool compared to what you’d find these days in a Ford Fiesta, and the digital readouts among the instruments look to have been prised from someone’s Casio wristwatch.

Yes, the column stalks are borrowed from an old Ford Mondeo. Can’t imagine many of the 77 individuals who got to configure one of these rocket-propelled boudoirs from new noticed, though. They’ll have been cooing over the only One-77 logo – an engraved plaque just inside the rear three-quarter window. This machine drips with delicious details.

Practicality? Not the One-77’s strong suit, if we’re honest. There is a boot, under a popper-secured leather flap beneath the rear hatch, which is mainly there to showcase the naked inboard suspension. The cargo hold itself is barely commodious enough for the exclusive toolkit and a packet of crisps.

Cupholders? Forget it. There’s no glovebox, zero door bin stowage, and only a minuscule armrest cubby hole to hide your Jelly Babies under. Obviously you don’t get Apple or Android smartphone mirroring. And with the cabin being encircled by fire-breathing exhaust, it can get a tad sweaty of a summer’s day.

Yet more evidence, then, that the One-77 is defiantly not a super-GT. This ain’t your grandad’s Bentley Continental GT with ‘roid rage. It’s a proper, unapologetic supercar. Send the luggage on ahead, grab a fistful of painkillers and take the twisty way, not the motorway.