The Clarkson review: Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante
猩式车评:阿斯顿·马丁 DBS Superleggera Volante
“Skyfall’s villains can blow this one up too”
《007大破天幕杀机》的反派应该把这车和DB5一起炸咯
Of course I will go and see the new James Bond film, but I almost certainly won’t enjoy it. I haven’t really enjoyed any of them since Daniel Craig took over.
007系列电影我是一部不落,但我并不喜欢新的007电影。自从丹尼尔·克雷格担演詹姆斯·邦德之后的所有007电影我都不怎么喜欢。
I know he wants his Bond to be fallible and weak, like the character in the books, but I don’t want to see 007 swigging Heineken from a bottle that just happens to be label-side out, and I don’t want to see him bleed, or fire his gun at something and miss. I want him to be Roger Moore, the cheeky chappie who could speak Latin, fly a space shuttle and lay anyone low with one of his signature karate chops.
我知道克雷格想演的是一个略显大意、内心脆弱的詹姆斯·邦德,就像小说里描述的那样。但我不希望007坐在酒吧对着一瓶标签朝外的喜力啤酒吨吨吨,也不想看见他受伤流血,枪枪打不中人。我希望他能成为罗杰·摩尔,一个厚颜无耻的花花公子,会说拉丁语,能飞太空船,用他标志性的空手道击晕一个个反派。
Craig’s Bond can’t do that. In fact, if you actually stop and think what he’s done in the past, you’d have to conclude he’s completely useless. In Casino Royale, he didn’t notice that the woman he’d fallen in love with was spying for the other side, and then, despite his best efforts, he let her drown in a lift. The next woman he lurved, in Skyfall, got shot in the head by a former colleague. Oh, and then he took an old woman who needed to go into hiding to his own bloody house,where she and 007’s gamekeeper wandered about on a darkened moor, with a torch, just in case the baddies needed even more help locating her.
但克雷格饰演的邦德做不到这些。如果你仔细思考一下他饰演的邦德所做的一切,你会发现电影里这货就是个废物。在《皇家赌场》里,他丝毫没有察觉到自己爱上的女神薇斯帕是敌方派来的间谍。尽管邦德拼尽全力,薇斯帕还是被困在水下的电梯里香消玉殒。《大破天幕杀机》中,邦德爱上的女性被他的前同事一枪爆头。然后他带着M躲回老家藏身,M和邦德家的猎场看守人居然还举着火把在黑暗的荒乱里潜逃,生怕坏人看不到自己的位置。
Before that happened, though, Bond went to interview someone in Shanghai and ended up throwing him off a skyscraper. And in an earlier scene, he was shot by Miss Moneypenny. I’m telling you, Johnny English is better at espionage than this guy, so’s Inspector Clouseau.
在带着M潜逃之前,邦德去上海拦截某位杀手,结果直接把那哥们扔下摩天大楼。《大破天幕杀机》开场中,他还被莫尼彭尼一枪击倒。我跟你讲,憨豆特工和粉红豹做间谍都比这代邦德强。
But the worst bit in Skyfall came when the director Sam Mendes decided to blow up Bond’s Aston Martin. So he pumped it full of bullets until it exploded.
但《大破天幕杀机》最烂的地方就是导演萨姆·门德斯决定炸掉邦德经典的阿斯顿·马丁DB5。在片子里车子被打成马蜂窝然后彻底boom。
I’m sure, to the luvvie-in-chief, this was fine, because a car is just a collection of plastic and metal and glass. But a car is not just a collection of plastic and metal and glass. And Bond’s Aston is more of a car than most. It has been a part of my life since I was four. I have owned many models, including one that would fire a small man under the sofa. And Mendes blew it up so he could get Craig to do some acting. I considered at the time filling Sam’s dog with bullets until it exploded, just to show him how it felt.
我很清楚,对于导演来说,车子炸就炸了。因为车对他来说只是一堆塑料、金属和玻璃的集合体。但邦德的DB5对我的意义不仅是一台普通的古董车这么简单,从我四岁开始,它就深深地刻在我的记忆里,陪伴我成长。我有很多DB5的模型,还有个可以弹射座椅的版本。而门德斯居然为了展现克雷格的演技,简单粗暴的炸掉DB5?对我而言,这种做法就像拍摄活活打死门德斯家的爱犬无数次的场景然后一把火烧了它那样的残酷。
The car was put back together in the next Bond film, Spectre — and it appears in the new movie as well — but it was like making Ring of Bright Water 2 and trying to argue that someone had sewn the otter’s head back on.
续作《幽灵党》中,DB5被Q拼了回去,在片尾跑了个龙套。而且它会在下一部007电影中继续出镜,但这种设定就好比在拍《复仇者联盟5》的时候把灭霸的头重新接上去那样违和。
I bet Aston Martin had a duck fit when it saw the DB5 reduced to a smouldering ruin, because Bond is its marketing department. He is its PR machine and its ad agency and its ambassador all rolled into one. So I bet it really did try to sew the DB5’s head back on, because without 007, the company would have to maintain a public profile on its own. And it doesn’t have the cash for that.
而且,我敢打赌阿斯顿·马丁的老板面对此情此景连个屁都不敢放。因为007系列电影就是他们最好的宣传,邦德是他们最好的公关机器、广告部门和形象大使。所以我敢打赌阿斯顿·马丁肯定费了老大劲心甘情愿地把DB5拼回去。如果失去邦德,阿斯顿·马丁就要自己去维持牌子形象和产品宣传,他们没哪个财力去做这种事。
I’m not sure it even had enough cash to develop the car you see before you today. It’s called — deep breath — the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante, and sometimes you get the impression that you’re tootling about in almost two tons of make-do and mend, with a bit of cast-off Mercedes tech to maintain a veneer of modernity.
我甚至怀疑他们哪来的钱捣鼓出你今天看见的这台新车。它叫——名字太长了——阿斯顿·马丁 DBS Superleggera Volante,如果置身其中,你可能会发现自己居然坐在一台两吨重的、东拼西凑的英伦荟萃中悠然自得,身边还有一些奔驰提供的高科技小玩具来保证整车那么一丢丢的现代感。
To create it, Aston had to chop the roof off a normal DBS, but this meant finding somewhere to put the electric roof mechanism. That meant rerouting the massive exhaust system and that meant turning the fuel tank round and redesigning everybody panel aft of the doors.
为了创造这台新车,阿斯顿需要砍掉DBS的车顶,再找地方安放体积不小的电动折叠顶棚。这也就意味着阿斯顿·马丁的工程师需要针对庞大的排气系统重新设计其布局,油箱要换个位置,车门后方的所有车身面板都要进行大改。
The company managed it, but sometimes the roof doesn’t go down when you operate the switch, the boot is laughably tiny, and it gets so hot in there, owing to the exhaust system, you could roast a chicken. There’s also a problem with the interior. Astonishingly, we got four adults in it, and that’s impressive, but it is almost identical to the interior you get in a far cheaper DB11 Volante. And that’s not good enough.
阿斯顿·马丁做到了。但DBS Superleggera Volante像个匆忙赶工的半成品。顶棚有时候放不下去;后备箱小得可怜,里面还贼热,得益于重新布置的排气系统,你都能在里面烤鸡啦。Volante的内饰设计也有问题。好的一面是,它能塞得下四个成年人,对于这样低矮的一台跑车来说相当的难能可贵。但这内饰和便宜不少的小老弟DB11 Volante基本一样,都到这个价位了,有点小气啊。
Sorry, but if I’m going to blow a quarter of a million on a car, I don’t want it to have the same innards as a car that costs almost ?90,000 less. The trouble is, of course, that when you’ve spent all that money turning the fuel tank round, there simply won’t be enough left to do the air vents as well. Or fit a glove box.
说真的,如果我要豪掷二百多万(25万英镑)买一台车,我肯定不想看见它的内饰和自家便宜80多万(9万英镑)的小跑车如出一辙。而阿斯顿·马丁的问题在于,如果你把研发经费都浪费在调省油箱位置上,工程师肯定没心思去捣鼓空调出风口或手套箱这种“小细节”。
It sounds like I have a real downer on this car, and I haven’t finished yet, I’m afraid. Because superleggera is Italian for “super-light”, and it just isn’t. With a couple of people on board, it weighs more than two tons. Perhaps that’s why it endlessly catches its chin-mounted skid plates on speed humps. And why its tires are so thin you need to be very careful when you’re parking, even against a dropped pavement, or you’ll kerb the wheels. Perhaps Aston should have called it Supergrasso.
看见现在,是不是觉得我对DBS Superleggera Volante这台新车差评如潮?还没完事呢。因为superleggera这个意大利词指代的是“超级轻量化”,但这台新阿斯顿·马丁名不副实。车上坐几个人,它就要突破两吨大关了,这可能也是为什么车头的前唇一过减速带时就磨得咔咔响的原因。停车的时候也要小心,车子太重,轮胎又这么薄,稍微磕到一点道路牙子可能就要鼓包漏气,或者是把轮毂刮花。或许阿斯顿·马丁应该给这车一个新名字:卧草。
You can feel this weight when you’re driving, too. It doesn’t come across as a feisty little whizz-bang; it’s no water boatman. But that said, it’s fast.
车子的一身肥肉在你驾驶时也能明显的感受到,它不能像小精灵一样在有限的空间里闪转腾挪,更称不上一个灵活的胖子。话虽如此,DBS Superleggera Volante的速度却不容小觑。
Rocket-ship fast. It’s almost too fast, because on wet roads you would be well advised to treat the throttle with extreme caution or you will have a crash. You even need to be careful sometimes on dry roads.
有多快?火箭发射一般的加速度。这车有点太快了,在湿滑道路上你会被告知踩油门的时候一定要小心再小心,否则车祸警告。即便是在干道上,你也要时刻警惕。
And that raises a question. If you can’t unleash all the volcanic fury without the back end having a few moments of panic, then why not save yourself the best part of ?90,000 and get the DB11 Volante instead? Because you can exploit all the power in one of those, all of the time. And it has the same interior. And it’s a little bit more civilized and comfortable.
在这种情况下,问题来了:如果你无法掌控火山喷发般的711匹马力完全通之后轮输出的狂躁,那为什么不为自己省下80万人民币(9万英镑)入手更温柔的DB11 Volante呢?因为DB11的马力更加可控,能够让你随时火力全开,而且内饰一模一样。相比DBS Superleggera Volante,体验上也显得更文明更舒适。
It’s almost as though Aston bit off more than it could chew with the DBS. Think of its engineers as pianists. They’re accomplished enough to impress their friends and colleagues, but they’re not really able to put on a penguin suit, walk onto the stage at the Royal Albert Hall and attempt Liszt’s La Campanella.
我感觉阿斯顿·马丁的能力和财力有限,无法让DBS再上一个台阶。如果把工程师比作钢琴师的话,阿斯顿·马丁的工程师弹出了令人惊艳的经典名曲。但他们还不足以在皇家阿尔伯特音乐厅穿着燕尾服现场演绎李斯特的《钟》(手指抽筋警告),水平还不够。
If you attempt to build a 211mph car that costs ?247,000, you need to make sure that you have the money to pull it off. Yes, the DBS Superleggera Volante is one of the best-looking cars ever made, and it’s blisteringly fast and it makes some laugh-out-loud noises from the tailpipes, but as a package, it’s flawed.
所以,任何一家车厂想要打造一台225万人民币,极速高达340公里/h的顶级超跑时,他们一定要确保自己的腰包是充裕的。诚然,DBS Superleggera Volante是史上颜值最高的车子之一,速度快如闪电,声浪震耳欲聋。但总的来说,白璧微瑕,实属可惜。
Hopefully, the new Bond film will be a gem and will keep alive the aura that surrounds the man and the car he drives. But I wouldn’t count on it. The way things are going, they’ll replace Craig with Anthea Turner and give her a Nissan Leaf. And that, I fear, would bring the curtain down on Britain’s best-loved car-maker.
我希望,新的007电影能更加优秀,展现出邦德和他的座驾无尽的魅力。但我并不指望新片的质量会有多好。按目前的情况来看,下一任邦德可能会由演员安西娅·特纳担任,座驾也可能被换成日产聆风。恐怕,这会让阿斯顿·马丁——最受英国人欢迎的汽车厂商——与邦德的拯救世界之旅落下帷幕。
In the meantime, if you want an Aston because you, like me, grew up worshipping them, then don’t despair because the DB11 Volanteis brilliant. That sort of car at that sort of price? Nobody does it better.
与此同时,如果你和我一样,出于从小对阿斯顿·马丁的崇拜,想当一回邦德,买一台阿斯顿·马丁的话,请不要绝望。因为还有一个完美的选择:DB11 Volante。考虑到性价比?DB11 Volante无敌了。
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