Our fifth book on Aston Martin starts with the introduction in 1994 of the DB7. Many people saw it as a sexed up Jaguar, not a true Aston - also it had a pressed steel body instead of a hand-built aluminium one, and "they plan to make lots of them, cannot be an Aston", and so on. However, it was successful and 7,049 were made which was a fantastic achievement considering that since 1920 only some 12,000 cars of all types had been made. The new V12 DB9, made in the companys first purpose-built, up-to-date factory at Gaydon, restored the hand-built image but with added up-to-date engineering features.