TEST DRIVE

TEST DRIVE – Aston Martin V12 Vantage

August 10, 2009, Posted by Nick Hall at 1:42 pm

Competitive Vantage

It started with a casual chat between engineers at the Aston Martin factory and a simple question. Could they really shoehorn the V12 from the DBS into the smaller, more agile Vantage body? The proof of this skunkworks project was waiting for us at the seductive development centre at the Nurburgring. Yes, they can.

Aston has set its sights firmly on the Ferrari 430, Lamborghini Gallardo and Porsche GT2, and our car even came in Mako Blue – named after the shark that hunts fellow predators. It’s a brave move, but this car looks more than up for the fight.

Carbon-fibre louvres cover the hood that had to be fashioned from new to provide the required clearance on the V12 engine and comes with an almost un-Aston like power bulge. Then there’s the carbon-fibre splitter, side skirts and a rear diffuser that joins forces with a higher bootlid spoiler. The V12 Vantage is an overtly muscular car, it’s truly like the elegant V8, which to my eye remains the most beautiful sportscar in the world, has been pumped full of raw meat and home-brewed narcotics.

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For some it’s a step too far. But then Aston reasonably argue that for the £135,000 ($222,000) asking price, it had to look different to the base model. It sounds different, too.

There are few better sounds in this world than the guttural roar of an Aston V12, and the first burst of acceleration drives home that special feeling that even the Italian giants struggle to match. It’s a deep mechanized clash, an old-school noise with the edge of brutality, and it’s a sound that makes me flatten the throttle on the first turn out of the development center gates.

The rev-counter makes its swift progress anticlockwise while the digital speedo becomes a blur. 140mph is easy progress and seems to come up in a moment, with a few short stabs through the muscular, rewarding manual box as the raucous engine thrashes towards 7500rpm. The company quotes a 0-62mph figure of 4.2 seconds, which is no match for the Ferraris and Lambos of this world and would leave the Aston trailing behind the odd super saloon. But while the on-paper performance is one thing, the sheer emotion of driving the Aston hard makes the decisions anything but clear cut.

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With 420lb/ft of torque to play with there’s more than enough torque to barrel through the winding backroads in third, although the tactile nature of the box demands a heel-and-toe downchange just for the fun of it. That gearknob looks like it belongs on a cheap bottle of men’s aftershave, and it’s situated in a place that makes a comfortable driving position nigh-on impossible to find, but you tend to forget that when pressing on.

And if the bypass valves blasting open at 4000rpm isn’t enough for you, Aston has installed a ‘fun button’, the sport mode switch on the dash that swiftens throttle response and locks the valves open in the cavernous exhaust. Pushing it feels like dropping a gear, the car bolts forward with a dose more revs and the sound is out of this world.

It will keep going all the way to 190mph on the right road, too, and on
although beyond 155mph on the derestricted Autobahn the nose goes light and starts to rove gently on the road. You’d have to be committed to find the top end, but somehow, miraculously, it just adds to the character of the car. Conversely, the Brembo 398mm front and 360mm rear ceramic brakes leave the competition’s for dead with a depth of feel I have never encountered before.

In the corners, too, it’s a marvel, and that goes way beyond the fact that it is the biggest engine force fed into the smaller, more agile Vantage chassis. This car has the stiffest spring set-up Aston has ever employed and lightweight forged and machined 19” wheels that carry customized Pirelli P Zero Corsas that measure a massive 11 inches across at the rear, 1/5” wider than the V8.

The engine bay that used to house a 4.7-litre V8 is crammed full and Aston’s engineers had to re-engineer the sump, oil pump and steering rack to fit everything in. Then they had to re-engineer the rest as the engine is 220lb heavier than the V8’s, yet the car is just 110lb heavier.

That is thanks to lightweight bucket seats from the DBS, Brembo’s ceramic brakes, carbon fibre interior door handles, composite panels beneath the skin, components shaved down to the nth degree and even lightweight carpets that show the near perverse lengths Aston went to in a bid to ensure the weight went from the right places. The end result is the 49/51 front/rear balance of the V8 became just a 51/49 balance in the big boy in the line-up.

So you can really lean on the Aston into the bend, feeling for the limit of the grip on the loaded tyre as 3700lb fights with Physics and a subtle, brilliant traction control system that deals with almost anything we could throw at it on the tight, slow hairpins that climb through the Eifel mountains. And with no pitch and roll it was just a case of throwing the car into the fast bends and powering through as the epic rear tyres did their thing. Break traction and that front engined layout should allow the tail to hang out at preposterous angles in skilled hands.

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This is the first time in a long time that Aston has truly gone head-to-head with the masters of the supercar World. And yet it has dealt the increasingly technical, paddle-shift warriors a sideways blow. It’s an ingenious thing, a typically British car that relies on good old-fashioned engineering and comes with charm by the bucketload. I’d love to see an RS version with the guts ripped out and the comfortable leather-clad interior replaced with racey carbon-fiber, but then this car does not come cheap and the creature comforts were a business decision.

And sadly so is the US sales process, as in it won’t happen in the foreseeable future. Aston plans to sell just 1000 and the red tape and re-engineering required to bring this monster Stateside just isn’t worth the reward, not in the current economic climate. That could change, though, depending on the demand, so get writing. Because to drive this skunkworks project that was spawned by a simple conversation is to fall in love with a back to basics sportscar that even rendered Jeremy Clarkson speechless – almost.

And as every Aston Martin piece must come with a James Bond reference in their somewhere, by law apparently, here goes the conclusion. Just as everyone’s favourite spy has been reinvented as a rough and tumble, gadget-stripped beast, so Aston has taken the sportscar genre back to its roots with a big front-mounted engine, a meaty gearshift, a heavenly sound and all the fun you can handle. And in doing so they might just have created the best Aston Martin ever built.

Aston Martin V12 Vantage

Engine: V12, 48 valves, 5935cc
Power: 510bhp@6500rpm
Torque: 420lb/ft@5750rpm
0-62mph: 4.2s
Top speed: 190mph
Weight: 3703lb

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