However, all good things must come to an end. 'This is the Vodafone voicemail service. You have one new message... B-E-E-E-P... "Meaden, Watson here. We'd like you to bring the Aston back to Newport Pagnell at the beginning of next week. If you don't we'll send the boys round. Okay?" ...

B-E-E-E-P... You have no more messages.'
It's the voicemail I never wanted to hear. The voicemail from hell (well, Gaydon actually). The voicemail that heralds the end of my time as an Aston Martin driver. The dreaded descent back down to earth has begun.

With just a handful of days left to enjoy all that elastic V12 urgency, howling exhaust note and Callum-penned road presence, it's time to plan a fittingly memorable final drive. A long journey that will play to the Aston's strengths and yield a few more magic moments to add to those gathered already during eight months of surreality.

But where to go? North Wales? Too familiar and frantic. West Country? Too crowded and too many cameras. Scottish Highlands? Too far. Motoring journalists and photographers are creatures of habit, preferring to go where we know rather than chancing our arms and striking out into the unknown. On this occasion, though, we decide to abandon tradition and head for the Scottish Borders and the area around the small town of Duns.

In truth it's not that wild a stab in the dark. The region is steeped in motorsport history, thanks mainly to its association with the legendary 1960s racing hero, Jim Clark, who hailed from the nearby village of Chirnside. Bizarrely the locality is also teeming with other race and rally luminaries past and present, and its roads form the basis of the British mainland's only closed road motorsport event, the Jim Clark Memorial Rally. So at the end of the long haul north there's a reward in store for me and the DB.

Loading Gus Gregory's camera equipment is never the work of a moment, so squeezing it all into the DB7 is quite a feat. The boot is reasonably big, but the bootlid hinges impinge on the space, making loading-up more like a game of Tetris. Still, there's more useable baggage space behind the front seats, for unless you've got small kids to lug, the rear seats certainly aren't going to be used for human cargo.

It's not long before we're pointing the Aston's proud nose up the A1. Squeezing on the power, it surges to a comfortable, natural-feeling 90mph cruise, as only a really big-cube-and-lots-of-cylinders engine can. The GT has a lower final drive than the V12 Vantage, so the engine is busier than you'd expect, but never intrusive, and the upside is epic sixth-gear response that has you lunging to 120mph with the merest flex of your right foot. Consequently, keeping vaguely legal is a constant battle of willpower over horsepower.

There's plenty of wind noise to remind you of the Aston's advancing years, particularly around the door mirrors. The interior is pretty cramped too - even my 4ft 9in frame tests the available headroom - and you never feel like the seat is set low enough in the car.

That said, the chair itself is comfortable so it's possible to find a happy compromise by fiddling with the rake and reach adjustable wheel and reclining the seat a few degrees more than normal. I can say with certainty that comfort levels increase with familiarity.

The DB's motorway presence is a great asset, for people simply drift out of your way, seemingly unable to resist watching its fluid lines slide past their window. No aggression or hassle, just a lingering sideways glance of appreciation. You can almost hear the voice in their head saying 'one day, when I win the Lottery...'

One frustration of long-distance driving in the DB is its fuel range: a tankful of unleaded (preferably Optimax) lasts no more than 270 miles. Use the performance in the lower gears and that drops to 240 miles, while a prolonged B-road strop will hammer it well south of 200. On average the GT will do 16 or 17 to the gallon, which isn't exactly frugal, but then nor is it particularly profligate.

Scotch Corner has been and gone, and so has Gretna: two morale-boosting landmarks on our long drive north. When we leave the main roads for something more interesting, the Aston shows the other side to its character. It positively loves the quick, open, addictively rhythmic sweeps and curves of the A697, settling into a neat, flowing groove, pliant suspension nicely on tip-toe. The weighty, muscular steering feels perfectly geared; a measured nudge of lock is more than enough to keep us resolutely on track.
It's no surprise to find we can sustain the same pace that we were setting on the A1.

The GT has a delicious exhaust note that genuinely howls at high revs, perhaps not as freely as a Vanquish, but it's still inspiring. It sounds encouragingly special and expensive at low speed too, a deep, complex, brassy rumble that ricochets off the forbidding dark-stone houses as we cruise through Coldstream.

From here it's a spirited cross-country dash to Duns, and our first chance to stretch the Aston's legs. There are fast - really properly fast - hedge-lined swoops and long, arrow-true straights that dip and crest like a tarmac rollercoaster. More than once Gus and I are left suspended in thin air, touching neither seat cushion nor headlining, suckered into cresting a brow 20mph too fast.

The DB's suspension soaks up the punishment (just) but the numerous scrapes and gouges in the tarmac are proof that others weren't so lucky. Local knowledge is everything around here, not just to pre-empt the yumps but to judge your braking for the savage combinations of 90degree lefts and rights that punctuate the straights. I'd love to have been around when Clark was here, perhaps encountering him on a spirited drive to his family home at Edington Mains Farm, deploying his sublime driving skills on roads he must have known like the back of his stringback-gloved hand.

Our ultimate destination is Duns, but we can't resist the opportunity to visit Charterhall, the scene of Clark's earliest on-track exploits. A bleak RAF training base during WW2, the circuit it became was a classic British venue, linking a long runway straight with fast perimeter-road corners. It's been a long time since the circuit was used for racing (although sections of the crumbling surface are still used for stage rallying, and the RAF use it for practice bombing runs!), but enough gnarly tarmac remains to appreciate it must have been a fearsome challenge in its heyday. The main straight must run for all of a mile-and-a-half. Encouragingly there are inspired plans afoot to revive it as a motorsport venue - if there's any spare Lottery money or European Development grants going begging, this is where they should be spent.

When we arrive in Duns, there's only one place we want to see: The Jim Clark Room. After his death, in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim on April 7, 1968, Clark's parents gifted many of his awards and trophies to Duns Town Council. After a public appeal, the Jim Clark Trophy Room was opened in 1969 and by 1992 more than 200,000 people had paid their respects. In 1993, to mark the 25th anniversary of Clark's death, the Jim Clark Room was refurbished and now charts Clark's career from his early club racing days at the now disused Charterhall circuit to the glory days in Formula 1 and at Indianapolis.

After the evocative dilapidation of Charterhall, the Jim Clark Room is as bright and pristine as Christmas morning. Brightly lit and imaginatively arranged, the modestly-sized room is crammed to the gunnels with the glittering spoils of Clark's fabulous career. It's a vivid, uplifting display: a celebration of a much-loved hero's achievements. Along with the trophies, awards and fascinating photos are some of his overalls. The suits - complete with a smattering of charming, hand-embroidered sponsor's logos - are surprisingly petite. Clearly Clark was a wiry chap, but then you only have to see footage of him racing to know he didn't rely on muscle to manhandle his machinery. If ever a bloke could make a car dance effortlessly on and over the limit - be it a Lotus F1 car or a Lotus Cortina - it was the wee man from Chirnside.

I'm in a reflective mood on the drive home. Hard not to be when you've driven in the wheel tracks of a man like Clark. I'm not in the mood to drive too quickly, but the Aston is one of those cars in which you can carry serious speed while simmering at about six-tenths driver effort.

Back home I leaf though a copy of Clark's book Jim Clark at the Wheel, and find a passage where he describes his taste in roads cars. 'I'm not really the typical enthusiastic sports car driver with a penchant for Spartan interiors and noisy exhausts. I prefer a good car that is fast yet comfortable and effortless for driving on ordinary roads.' I've got a feeling the DB7 GT is his kind of car.