Do fancy yours much
720S Spider or DB11 AMR? By Ben Miller
Much has changed since the innocent days of February; almost everything has changed, in fact. And one tiny change has been the way in which the test cars we book find their way into our expert, if slightly clammy, hands. Previously, we sat back and awaited a call from reception to say the car had arrived, either on a truck or through the kind assistance of a delivery driver. How spoiled we were.
For myriad reasons, not all of them interesting, we now tend to go and collect test cars from press oces. And this creates some interesting comparisons, in that we’re now inadvertently testing two cars back-to-back, on the same day and probably on the same route; the one you drove down to swap, and the unfathomably clean test car you swap into.
This month, because I must have been basically Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Bob Geldof rolled into one in a previously life, the universe rewarded me with a day in which I drove the DB11 to McLaren’s HQ at Woking and returned in a Silica White 720S.
The Aston lapped up the drive, proving entirely undemanding and most pleasant as we ticked off the two-hour journey. But while it may seem unfair to compare them, on price the Aston and the McLaren might – in some parallel universe of significant disposable income – be rivals for your affection.
In truth it’s dicult to ignore the 720S, arguably the best car McLaren’s yet built. Its midengined layout precludes rear seats, of course, and while the Aston’s are virtually unusable, they do at least exist. Weirdly, luggage capacity isn’t an easy win for the AMR
– the DB11 has 280 litres to the McLaren’s 208. And predictably the 720S is faster, more exhilarating (as you would expect of a supercar versus a GT) and somehow just as long-legged and pliant when you just want to get home, fast.
Perhaps, then, rather than being anathema, Aston Martin’s mid-engined Vanquish will be just the ticket.