FORCE OF NATURE
The most powerful car from Aston is also one of its most beautiful
BERCHTESGADEN, GERMANY Aston Martin nomenclature can be a little confusing. There’s the whole DB thing: Does it really stand for David Brown, the man who bought the company in 1947 (for the grand sum of £20,500, by the way)?
Why, in fact, yes it does, but the practice stopped in 1972 when Brown had to sell the company because of financial difficulties and was only restored in 1993 when Ford bought the brand.
And what’s with the skipping of even numbers? There has been no DB10 (save for some now forgotten prototype in James Bond’s Spectre) and no DB8 before it.
It turns out there’s no numerical discrimination against even numbers, says Marek Reichman, the company’s brilliant and longstanding creative designer. Both the previous “9” and the current “11” were considered by Aston insiders as two generations superior to their predecessors.
And why is this car called a DBS — a name unused between 1972 and 2008 — instead of the more au courant Vanquish?
Well, as it turns out — and this is not confirmed — the Vanquish nameplate is being retired, but may be resurrected on the company’s McLaren Senna-challenging mid-engined supercar due in 2021.
As for the Superleggera appellation, that’s the easiest. Even someone not fluent in Italian is able to deduce that it means “lightweight,” a reflection of the liberal use of carbon fibre in this particu- lar DB and a model differentiator used by Gaydon in the similarly lighter weight version of the famed DB4, 5 and 6.
There’s no question this is Aston’s most powerful production car. Reichman calls the new DBS Aston’s “brute in a suit” and there isn’t even the slightest bit of exaggeration to that claim. Essentially the DB11’s made-by-Aston 5.2-litre V12 (the V8 offered in lesser models is an AMG-based unit) is turned up to “stun,” and the Superleggera boasts 715 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque.
It is that torque that dominates the DBS aura. All those pound-feet — 134 more than Ferrari’s firebreathing 812 Superfast — chime in at just 1,800 r.p.m. (try 7,000 r.p.m. for the Ferrari’s 530 poundfeet), which means that no matter where you are or what speed you’re travelling, this Aston Martin responds like the Millennium Falcon punched into hyperspace. One second, you’re behind some lollygagging eighteen-wheeler. Tickle the throttle, even just a little, and you’re suddenly transported into another galaxy.
Few cars — even the McLaren P1s of the world — can match the Superleggera in passing acceleration. Time and time again, I was shocked at just how quickly the Superleggera could pick up its skirt and dash. Aston’s latest version of its new V12 is a force of nature.
A little too forceful perhaps. Even though Aston butched up its eight-speed transmission to cope with the Superleggera’s prodigious torque, in the first three gears, the engine has to be limited to 600 pound-feet or so — depending on the gear and which mode (GT, Sports or Sports Plus) you’re in — so the bearings don’t shred every time you try to lay rubber with those twin 305/30ZR21 Pirelli PZeros.
It more or less sounds the part. The “more” part is that Aston is finding ways of making its turbocharged cars sound like they’re not running under six feet of tepid pond water. The “less” qualifier is because the previous, naturally aspirated 6.0-L was the sharpest sounding V12 in supercardom. Yes, better than the high-revving — and more powerful — Ferrari.
It handles a treat as well. Thanks to a lower ride height, a reduced centre of gravity and a wider track, there’s precious little body roll. High-speed stability is also superior, thanks to the 180 kilograms of downforce, the most for any production Aston Martin ever, says Reichman. So, fling the big 2+2 coupe into a tight hairpin or strafe down the autobahn at its 338 km/h top speed and the big Aston handles either with aplomb.
Though it is some 70 kg lighter than a DB11 and its 1,693-kg curb weight is relatively modest for such a large car, it is wide. Perhaps, it was just me being overly cautious with $365,434-plus of carbon-fibred supercar, but the new Aston Martin DBS sure does fill a lane.
That supersized booty may be the Superleggera’s most important feature; it is, by far, the best looking two-door Aston of recent years.
The interior, by comparison, is somewhat ordinary. To be sure, the Superleggera’s interior is truly luxurious, clothed as it is with carbon fibre and Bridge of Weir leather. But the DBS costs something in the region of a hundred large more than the base DB11 and, for the most part, is clothed identically. A little more pizzazz might be in order.
It matters not a whit. No one seriously shopping an Aston is going to choose not to buy the DBS because its interior is — again, by Gaydon standards — ordinary. Nope, the Superleggera is going to be a huge hit among the one-percenters who, says Reichman, are starting to see Aston as a legitimate competitor to Ferrari. That’s because the formula for supercar success remains as it ever was: Combine tire-shredding horsepower with achingly good looks and people will beg you to take their $365,434. Driving.ca