I arrived in the UK with a bike – now I own a £225k Aston

"I came here from South Africa in 2007 with £312.98 to my name. I've always remembered the pennies!" says Manni Azizi, a retired entrepreneur. "I couldn't afford a car so I rode a bicycle." Today, 18 years later, he has considerably more than £300 to his name at least enough to afford his rather fine, £225,000 Aston Martin Vanquish V12. "It is my first Aston," he says. "I had a couple of Bentleys before - a GT and a GTC - but I'd always wanted an Aston. In South Africa, a Vanquish was my poster car. When I decided to buy my own, it had to be a second-generation model. I wanted the naturally aspirated V12 engine, because it marked the end of an era. The car had to be in the colour combination of red with a pale interior. This one took me months to track down." Manni has owned his Vanquish for a little over a year. He can't recall when it was first registered (that's a mere detail when you're spending nearly a quarter of a million pounds) but says it was showing around 15,000 miles when he bought it from Aston Martin Sevenoaks. He has since added 7000 miles. "It's my daily driver now I'm retired," he says. "It's garaged, but I always use my cars: I put mileage on them. If the Vanquish gets marked, I'll just have it repaired. I love it, but I'm not precious about it." Of course, ownership of a Vanquish doesn't stop with paying for it. There are running expenses to consider too. On that point, a recent service cost Manni around £1000 and he has just spent £1300 on a new set of tyres. He appears quietly accepting but brightens up when he tells me what his insurance premium is. "It was £1500 through a comparison website!" he says. "I was pleasantly surprised. The cover is limited to 8000 miles per year, but that's as much as I drive anyway." And when he does, he says the Aston never disappoints: "It's amazing and everything I'd hoped for. The power is everywhere and, unlike in my turbocharged W12 Bentleys, so linear. "The engine sits much farther back in the car than you think. It corners flat and is extremely comfortable. It's rear-wheel drive, and in the wet the back gets a little squiggly but not in a dangerous way." Can he imagine selling it one day? "I want to say it's not a keeper but, at the same time, I might just hold onto it for what its naturally aspirated V12 engine represents," says Manni. He would like to do a European road trip next year, possibly with fellow Aston Martin owners. "I met some members of the Aston Martin Owners Club at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor recently. They were all really nice people and I think a road trip with them would be fun," he says. I wonder what they would make of the fluffy toy propped up on the Aston's passenger seat. Manni explains: "Two years after I arrived in the UK, I bought my first car, a BMW 330i. For some reason, I put a little teddy bear in it, and since then I've put a toy in each of my cars. They're like guardians. I put a duck in my Bentley GT that I called Dorothy. This one is Foxy Fox." I reckon a man who can go from £300 and a bicycle to a £225,000 Vanquish in less than 20 years deserves his fun.

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I arrived in the UK with a bike – now I own a £225k Aston

A naturally aspirated V12, red paint and a cream interior make this one a keeper

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I arrived in the UK with a bike – now I own a £225k Aston

A naturally aspirated V12, red paint and a cream interior make this one a keeper

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