Sin’cos tan

FOR Looks fab, sounds naughty, goes like stink, looks after your hairdo AGAINST Fiddly dashboard. Dare we say it, a smidge too much power for its own good...

Unless someone drives their Valkyrie under a really, really low bridge, the new Aston DBS Volante will remain for some time Aston Martin’s ultimate open-top car. It’s the only way to get an al fresco Aston V12 experience – the DB11 Volante is AMG V8 only. And what a V12. 5.2 litres, two turbos, 715bhp and 664lb ft of torque with a power band to make a diesel weep into its ULEZ receipt.

Sometimes, it’s too much. Mostly, the DBS puts its power down with traction alchemy, but more than once, it twerked its frankly gorgeous carbon hips when asked to changed lanes and perform what should have been a routine overtake. In the dry. In fourth gear. It’s a demonically, relentlessly fast car, this. A couple of tenths behind on the hard-top from nought to sixty, sure, but still rapid enough to run with Ferrari 488s and Lamborghini Huracáns. Super-fast.

It’s a bit rich calling a car that weighs 1.9 tonnes with fluids on-board ‘Superlight’, but the big Aston doesn’t half hide its 100kg weight gain over the coupe carefully. I dare say that I’ve never driven a stiffer cabrio that doesn’t depend on a carbon tub – there’s no hint of flex or shimmy from the chassis, which runs the same suspension settings as the coupe. That’s confidence for you. No softening off the handling ‘because drop-top buyers don’t go to track days’ excuses here. Aston handling chief Matt Becker says the DBS needed to stay sporty to justify its place and price above a DB11. He also says that the top speed is quoted at 211mph because that’s what the car does with the roof down. Which is startling. Roof up, the engineering bods have had it beyond 215mph.

The dark art of aerodynamics comes into play here. The Volante has lost the coupe’s

rear air intakes and its boot vent, which forces air flow out of the tail and glues the car’s backside to the road. But with some reprofiling of the front’s vents and intakes, Aston reckons there’s a negligible drop in downforce. And more importantly, you can have a conversation as you barrel along the motorway, roof down, and whisper sweet nothings once the fabric top has motored into place. It takes 16 seconds and works at up to 30mph. Or when you’re not even in the car – just plip the key to operate the top. It’s all been very well sussed out, and exquisitely assembled. Which you’d hope, for a quartermillion quid. This Tango’d, carbon’d test car? Three hundred grand. Do be careful, 007.

Foibles? Yep. The touch-sensitive dashboard is just as infuriating as in the (much cheaper) DB11, visibility of all four corners is hopeless, and the V12 doesn’t freeze the hairs on the back of your neck with liquid nitrogen now it’s turbocharged (and will get muffled later in the year when new EU filters have to be squeezed into the exhaust). But this thing steers, brakes, goes with such cultured pomp and circumstance, and looks so fabulous, it charms like no other £250k super-roadster can.

Best settings? Stick the engine in Sport Plus (loud exhaust crackles, big bark, sharp response), leave the suspension in its GT default (to feel the chassis glide along beneath you), and take the gearbox by the horns (OK, the tactile carbon paddles). The steering’s accurate, beautifully weighted and refreshingly measured, unlike the joystick-quick turn-in Ferrari prefers. The DBS is happy to be more laid-back. It’s a gentlemanly brute, charming and debonair. Which makes it the ultimate modern expression of a classic Aston.

“IT’S RAPID ENOUGH TO RUN WITH 488s AND HURACÁNS”