Aston Martin DBS
By Nigel Moll - September 1, 2009
Your smileage may differ, but in the eyes and ears of this beholder, no car packs quite the visual and sonic punch of the Aston Martin DBS. From its wide crouch, broad haunches and wraparound tail lights to the subtle flares, flows, channels and curves downwind from its hallmark pinched-corner grille, the DBS is a riveting spectacle from any angle.
On the day of delivery, the car tested looked shiny black in heavy rain falling from a leaden sky. Next day, the sun shone bright to reveal a galaxy of red metallic flecks, glinting like fragments of ruby set in transparent black and giving the paint a holographic depth. People who like cars stare at this one whether it’s moving or stationary. Jaws drop before faces turn to smiles.
Beneath the hood is a 510-hp, 6.0-liter front mid-mounted V12 that sounds the way a dirty dozen should–to hell with socially sensitive muffling. Encircling the DBS and ricocheting back at the driver off the flanks of opposing traffic, its hard-charging noise is quite simply magnificent, thanks to four overhead cams, variable geometry in the intakes and active bypass valves that manipulate the exhaust-pipe acoustics. You’ll detour to take this car through a tunnel.
With 50 percent more instruments in the bandstand, the Aston’s noise is as distinctive and as cop-magnetic as that of the Ferrari F430’s V8. At about 5500 rpm, some power-boosting inlet-geometry and outflow tweaking combines with the harmonics of the power pulses to produce veritable trumpet blasts out the twin tailpipes. At 6500 rpm in first, flicking the upshift paddle fixed on the steering column and lightly lifting the accelerator prompts the exhaust note to do a staccato trombone slide into second, spitting a fusillade of flinty decibels into the wake as the forward lunge gets its second wind, with four more winds in store to reach a book maximum speed of 191 mph.
Zero to 60 mph takes 4.3 seconds–not a blisteringly swift dash, but the V12 soundtrack and the dynamic feel of the car more than compensate for any laggard tenths of a second. This is an automobile that’s driven to stir the soul as much as to move the cold, dead hands of a stopwatch. Pushed hard, the TouchTronic 2 six-speed SMG transmission–a new option for 2009 to augment the six-speed three-pedal true manual that had been the only choice on the DBS–shifts with an abruptness more in keeping with the marque’s racing genes.
Since 2004, Aston Martin engines (V8s and V12s) have been built by 100 Aston Martin people in a dedicated engine plant in Cologne, Germany. Each car carries plaques announcing “Handbuilt in England,” but (like BMW’s Rolls-Royce and VW’s Bentley) they all contain engines made in the land of obsessive engineering and legendary tolerances. Nobody’s complaining.
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