Aston Martin launches Centenary Editions of DB9, Vantage, Vanquish & Rapide

Aston Martin celebrates its centenary with Centenary Edition versions of their entire range featuring special paint finish and bespoke interiors. One hundred years ago today, Aston Martin arrived as Bamford & Martin as Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford formed the company which would, just a year later, become Aston Martin, and to celebrate the centenary Aston Martin is creating 100 Centenary Editions of each of its model range (although not, it seems, the Cygnet). All the centenary Edition cars (V8 Vantage, DB9, Rapide and Vanquish) will feature a unique graduated paint finish and get adorned with solid sterling silver wing badges (don’t park your Centenary Edition Aston Martin in a public car park with the current price of silver) with tailored ‘Trans Flux’ enamel inlay.

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

The AutoWeek List: Top 10 favorite engines available now

1. Audi 4.2-liter V8 Specs: 420-hp, 317 lb-ft Found in: Audi R8 Our take: One the most flexible performance V8s available. 2.