Aston Martin drive – V12 Vantage, DBS Volante, V8 Vantage, DB9

By Ash Simmonds.

Aston Martin have just released two new pieces of rolling art loaded with V12 warheads, and two of the first in Australia are now on their promo tour around the country to get bums in seats.

Solitaire Automotive are the Adelaide dealers, and invited us on an Aston Martin drive event to properly experience the new models, and have a play with the existing line-up.

We turned up around 9:30am to be greeted by Louise, Nigel, and four beasts of Britain.
 
 
 

Click any of the above thumbnails for photos of that car.

View the full gallery of 148 hi-res photos here: http://aussieexotics.com/drivers/thumbnails-424.html.

Slideshow

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Marcel Fabris – an engineer from Aston Martin – was also on hand to tell us about the new cars.

V12 Vantage

First ride of the morning was as passenger in the V12 Vantage, which is basically a V8 Vantage with a few extra pots tacked on to the engine, taking it from a 4.7L with 420hp and 470nm, to 5.9L with 510hp and 570nm of grunt – and a helluva sound-system upgrade from the rear pipes.

According to the official site, it’s “Aston Martin’s most exhilarating sports car“.

The latest incarnation of the Vantage family has been designed to provide a unique character, appealing to different driver tastes and complementing the other models in the current Aston Martin line-up.

Designed for the focused driver, every component of the V12 Vantage has been honed with pure driving enjoyment in mind. Benefitting from race-developed materials and components, and featuring lightweight carbon fibre; performance and agility have been tuned to perfection.

Visually enticing, the V12 Vantage expresses its performance potential through its purposeful stance created by enhanced aerodynamic and cooling aids optically widening the car, while retaining traditional understated Aston Martin design. Equally inviting, the cosseting interior permits the driver to extract maximum performance ability from the car while also enjoying customary levels of Aston Martin comfort on longer journeys. High levels of power and torque are available at all engine speeds making the V12 Vantage responsive and tractable in any driving situation.
 
 
Production of the V12 Vantage will be limited to 1,000.

 
Pushing the fob into a slot in the middle of the dash – quite reminiscent of a cassette-tape – the exhaust reports off the nearby walls and steadies to a distant-thunder like rumble. Marcel told us the clutch take-up was very high, and he had a lot of really cool technical explanations about the mega gearbox and clutch setup – so it’s a little difficult for a newcomer to get used to.

The seats – well racing buckets – are very taut but huggy. This results in a rather low seating position – so your view is monstered by the huge dash – apparently it’s otherwise the same as the V8 Vantage, which has better visibility.
 
 

Inside the car driving along the exhaust actually sounds quite tame – it’s kind of a distant howl that you’ve long left behind, it was only later when following it that we realised just how magnificent it actually sounds to other people.

Sadly the half hour or so we spent in it was mostly just getting used to the big stonking front-engined V12 thing – and the feel of an Aston Martin in general, so we didn’t really have a chance to give it a sporting go. Watching it driven later by others though it looks pretty damn impressive, it would be nice to spend more time with this car – I feel it could be something very special.

As for beauty of sound and vision – as a front-engined car I can’t recall encountering anything that really competes.

Click here for more Aston Martin V12 Vantage photos

DBS Volante

If you ever feel like you haven’t had quite enough UV radiation exposure, then the roadster version of the atom-smashing DBS is for you. I just love saying it, Volante – it rolls off the tongue like ordering a side dish to a steak – yes I’d like a fillet mignon with volante and asparagus stalks.

And it is a delicious car – like basically all 2+2’s the rear seats are quite hilarious, the only way you could reasonably imagine them useful is cruising for midget hookers – but we’re in the fantastic South Australian wine country, twisty roads and rolling hills aplenty – perfect conditions to really enjoy this car.

You kind of get in expecting the drive to be like naval warfare vessel, it just somehow appears big and soft yet pulls off looking tough – like a carbon fibre marshmallow. Thing is though, the steering is pinky-finger light and extremely responsive – there’s an ever so slight vagueness at dead centre, but I didn’t notice any particular issue when pointing that intimidating front grille through a corner.

Handling is very neutral, you very quickly gain confidence to really approach bends without much fear of understeer or inertia – indeed on some of the tighter corners it actually felt nice and chuckable, the TCS/burnout button is very enticing here.

The sound is more deep and throaty than Linda Lovelace, a nurturing rumble at cruising – and when the foot goes down or the tacho snags 5k the active exhaust bellows out like Barry White getting bamboo shoots up his fingernails.

The other sound system from B&O seems pretty damn good – we didn’t get much of a chance to really test it, but we tried a bit of a poofy dance track and some sweeping classical which really suited the road out of The Lanes Vineyard – it was cranked to somewhat more than comfortable volumes and the sound was crisp, the range better than my 90’s-techno-rave-deafened ears can discern, and the bass was meatier than a buffalo but it didn’t cause any rattles or distortion.

The one hang-up I have about the DBS Volante is the paddle-shift, this car needs a stick dammit. The gearshifts just didn’t seem as precise or in tune with what you want as they should – when you are doing the take-off you really want a good solid and clean shift from first to second, but I found it seems to falter up around redline for a while like it’s hunting for the next gear, it’s quite disconcerting and you feel as though you’ve lost momentum. Dropping down a cog or two as you approach a corner you’re unsure you might have the right gear, admittedly I’ve only driven it for less than an hour so it might be a learning process, but I couldn’t help thinking it just wasn’t suitable for this car.

Click here for more Aston Martin DBS Volante photos

V8 Vantage

Getting behind the wheel of the V8 Vantage I think it took maybe 3 gearshifts and 2 corners before I was settled nicely into this car, it’s just really easy to grab a hold of. What I noticed right away was how good the visibility was compared to the V12 – see at this point in time I couldn’t have told you bupkis about any of the cars – all I knew was that they were Astons, and so it surprised me when I was told the Vantage I was driving now was basically the same as the V12 except for the engine and race seats – they really felt like two completely different cars.

Other funny thing is – the sound for the driver on the V8 is more rewarding than the V12. The V12 has a spine-tingling howl that slaughters the V8, but the problem is when in the car it’s too quiet – only passers-by and people following know how good it is. The V8 Vantage though – it booms and growls and pops and farts, it gives all the right feedback to the driver so you can have some of the fun too. On the V12 my suggestion is that they install the exhaust pipes on the front of the car.

The ergonomics are fantastic – not much more need be said – the only niggle I had was that the dead-pedal encroaches too much on the clutch. I got used to it pretty quickly, but now and then when you go for a fast gearchange you find your heel just clips the dead-pedal unless you specifically use just the ball of your foot.

V8 Vantage – vision, sound, drive, and satisfaction – all rate beautiful.

DB9

This car I was only passenger in – and not for very long either, plus it was a flappy-paddle jobby which again doesn’t suit the vehicle.

We had several nice minutes of barnstorming through some rolling hills and poor tarmac conditions, the car remaining poised and balanced with everything thrown at it. The noise from this car from within the cockpit was the best of the three tintops – which is probably more to say it was loudest. The V12 Vantage killed it for the quality of the exhaustical symphony – but only from an outsiders perspective.

Would certainly have enjoyed spending more time with this car to get a real idea of what it’s made of – especially if it had a third pedal in it.

Photos

A few more random pics of the cars in general, full gallery available here.

Out at The Lane Vineyard they had a DB9 Volante soaking up the atmosphere too, very tasty.

So thanks a bunch to Solitaire Automotive Adelaide for a great day, here’s hoping they pick up a bunch of new customers so we can see a few more of these fantastic cars out in the wild.

Ash.

Discussion in the Australian Aston Martin forums.