Did this Aston Martin Vanquish Cause its Owner’s House Fire?

By Brett Foote - September 7, 2018

Aston Martin Vanquish owner immediately fell in love with it. That is, until, well, you know…

For decades now, DJs who want to get a crowd going only need to utter one single phrase, “the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!” But we’re guessing that Mike McGuinness, the subject of this recent VINwiki video, doesn’t quite appreciate those lyrics like he maybe used to. At least, not after his manual transmission-swapped Aston Martin Vanquish burned his freaking house down. Even though he admits that “you couldn’t have a better way to burn a house down than with an Aston Martin Vanquish manual.”

We mean, he has a point. But the events that led up to this disastrous result came about because of his obsession with stick shift cars, in all fairness. It all started when he fell in love with his buddy’s Lotus Elise and eventually purchased it. But it was leaky and noisy. So McGuinness started looking for something fancier. You know, something he could take his girl to a nice seafood dinner in. And that’s when he landed on a nice used Aston Martin Vanquish.

There was just one problem, McGuinness is a self-proclaimed “manual guy.” And the Vanquish is prone to shift actuator failure, a $20k+ fix. Thus, he decided to do what a lot of other people have done. Buy one and replace that faulty tranny with a row-your-own gear box.

It took some time to get done, but McGuinness quickly fell in love with his new ride. He even got an incredible bit of news later, finding out that his car was in fact a one of 94 cars equipped with the Sports Design Pack (SPD). Thus, the ecstatic Aston owner and his friends had a party to celebrate.

But while down the street, his house suddenly burst into flames. The insurance company blames the Aston, but McGuinness isn’t so sure. We are also suspicious of the claim. Regardless, this video is a fascinating yet painful reenactment of that tragic event!