Feature
First Look: 2008 Aston Martin DBS
Flat Out in Aston's 510-hp Super Coupe
This could be the Nürburgring. Ahead the tarmac rises, kinks left and enters a long, dark, green canopy and in an instant we're into it. "I call this section 'The Labyrinth,'" says the German-accented driver over the basso profundo rumble of the big V12 which is surging out and back athletically as we jink the 2008 Aston Martin DBS between corners.
Finally we barrel out of the Labyrinth's final bend and down the straight that follows, the V12 running all the way out to its redline. Then near silence: He's demonstrating the carbon-ceramic brakes, and if you listen carefully you can just hear me choking as I hang hard from my seatbelt.
This isn't the Nürburgring. It's the B-something in Warwickshire, northwest of London. We're not going to tell you which one exactly; it's too good. And although the driver is German and a racer, he is better known as the CEO of Aston Martin.
Dr. Ulrich Bez took the company from producing 800 cars when he joined in 2000 to 7,000 now and over 9,000 when the Rapide arrives in 2009. He also led Aston Martin to independence from Ford earlier this year and the car we're riding in, the DBS, is the first to be launched since.
You Saw It in Bond
He's an engaging character, Bez. The recording of our fairly committed tour of the Warwickshire countryside also features him peppering his technical explanations with sound effects, patting my hand as he checks to see if I'm OK after the brake test and essentially refusing to go anywhere until I've killed a bee that's buzzing around in the seatless rear of the Aston Martin DBS. Odd. Happy to race around the world's most dangerous circuit in the rain at the dead of night, but terrified of insects.
The Aston Martin DBS won't cause him any sleepless nights. Once a new car selling 500 each year would have made or broken Aston. No longer; the DBS will be the smallest seller in a six-model range, and half the first year's production has been sold in the U.K. alone. Being the wheels of the most popular Bond in years, particularly when — pop-out PPK excepted — Bond's newfound realism means there's little difference between this and the car Daniel Craig drove, hardly limits your sales prospects.
Success was never in doubt. Other than being one of the first to ride in the DBS, what we wanted to discover was how we should see it. According to Aston it "bridges the gap" between the DB9 and the racing DBR9. On paper it looks like Aston's take on the 911GT3 or 430 Scuderia; it's 143 pounds lighter than a standard manual DB9 with its restyled, harder-edged carbon-fiber panels, carbon-ceramic brakes, stripped-out cabin and manual transmission. But in price (likely to be around $200,000), timing and power (up 13 percent to 510 horsepower at 6,500 rpm and 420 pound-feet at 5,750 rpm), it could be seen as a Vanquish replacement. The way Bez sees it determines how it will drive.
Fly Like a Butterfly
"From a price position this is a Vanquish replacement, but from a character position it is not," he says. "A Vanquish is like a David Nash sculpture. It has stunning forms but it is not integrated or sophisticated. The brakes need a lot of force, the gearchange needs a lot of attention. It gives you a lot of satisfaction, like riding a wild horse. But this is a completely different horse. It is quicker, it brakes better, but it has better comfort, it has everything. It is very refined and high-technology. It attracts the same customer but is a different car."
Different how, exactly? "If you talk about edgier, harder, of course it goes around the Nürburgring half a minute faster than the Vanquish but it is so much smoother in how it does it. This is the interesting thing; a lot of people may see more performance as edgier. But Muhammad Ali was an elegant boxer, very smooth but very strong, and a sprinter is a very elegant mover. I see this performance as best if it is smoother, softer."
But there are plans for a harder, lightweight Aston. "We will have at some stage such a lightweight car with the V8 Vantage. We will take weight out, comfort out and noise insulation out. But they make you look stupid if you drive them slowly. The DBS is absolutely perfect for daily use."
Carbon Footprint
So let's find out. From the outside, the DBS looks like what it is: a steroidal DB9; though I'm not sure if you improve the standard car's near-perfect proportion and detail by adding spoilers and venturis. You do demonstrate where the extra money has gone, and for most buyers in a supercar market gone supernova, happy to spend as much with Aston as Aston will let them, that will be enough. Our car is a prototype; largely correct, but lacking the final grille, only three of which exist and are in Pebble Beach, California, for the car's official unveiling.
Nearly half the car's weight saving comes from the carbon-fiber panels, hood, deck lid and front and rear wings. Aston has developed a new "surface veil" treatment that coats the carbon panel with a 200-micron-thick glass and epoxy layer to produce a perfect paint finish and prevent the carbon weave from showing through.
Elsewhere, it's a feature; the underside of the hood, the wing mirror struts, the door caps. The new front splitter is also carbon. The carbon-ceramic brakes are a first on a road-going Aston and save almost 28 pounds of unsprung mass. The superb paddle-shift-operated ZF six-speed automatic transmission will be offered as an option later but at the same 88-pound weight penalty as in the standard car. The wheels are 20 inches in diameter and wear Pirelli P Zero rubber measuring 245/35 front and 295/30 rear.
Mass Hysteria
The interior is also DB9 plus 20 percent. Even the "comfort" seats look like they ought to have harnesses; carbon-backed, ultrathin lightweight seats are a no-cost option and the door tops are bare carbon, too. The switchgear sprouting from the polished central console is all thick nuggets of aluminum now; no Ford-group borrowings here. The crystal key slots into the starter button in the center of the dash, but I don't see Bond referring to it as an "emotion control unit," as Aston would like him to.
Its official 3,737-pound curb weight includes the standard seats, but the lightweight seats cut another 44 pounds from the mass. Either way, this is a heavy car. The optional seats have fixed backs but adjust for rake, and their exposed carbon and Kevlar shell is just 3mm thick. Aston even claims that the suede-effect leather trim and carpet fibers have been specially chosen for their lightness; shame the typical buyer is pot-bellied.
They can call it what they like when it gives you access to performance like this — Aston says the DBS will hit 60 mph in 4.3 seconds and top out at 191 mph. The result of more power and less weight is predictable in theory but still slightly shocking in practice. In the time it takes Bez to get his right foot in, the DBS has leapt from exit to the apex and we're back on those monstrous brakes. The car is wider but it feels more agile by some margin, both in its instant accelerative ability and in the composure with which it sweeps through bends.
More of Everything
Early DBSs suffered from a stiff, slightly awkward ride but this car finally seems to have it nailed; it manages to round off the worst of the harshness of these coarse, potholed roads while keeping the body in check. As Bez promised this is clearly not a hard-core, compromised, lightweight street racer; I could tolerate this ride all day.
But the DBS won't be a pushover; the traction is evidently mighty but the back end squirms under the hard acceleration. Bez is plainly a very skilled driver but even he fluffs a few changes, testament to the difficulty of managing a 5.9-liter 48-valve V12 through a six-speed manual box.
And what about the stuff we can't gauge from the passenger seat? "You will have a different sensation to the DB9," Bez promises, "but not in the sense of it being harder. It will feel more agile even if it is wider. It is more muscular but not without feel. You can take your big toe and feel the sensitivity in the brake, but it's not soft. The gearshift in a Porsche doesn't give you enough of a reaction, it's too soft. This is more rounded. The steering is good but we can get it better; it's not quite where the braking is yet."
So the DBS claims to offer more of everything — more power, more drama and more dynamism. And more importantly to Aston, more A-grade global exposure than an outfit this size could ever pay for, and more customers paying more money. But does it offer more enough to be twice the price of the Vantage? When we lever Bez out of the driver seat, we'll tell you.
Finally we barrel out of the Labyrinth's final bend and down the straight that follows, the V12 running all the way out to its redline. Then near silence: He's demonstrating the carbon-ceramic brakes, and if you listen carefully you can just hear me choking as I hang hard from my seatbelt.
This isn't the Nürburgring. It's the B-something in Warwickshire, northwest of London. We're not going to tell you which one exactly; it's too good. And although the driver is German and a racer, he is better known as the CEO of Aston Martin.
Dr. Ulrich Bez took the company from producing 800 cars when he joined in 2000 to 7,000 now and over 9,000 when the Rapide arrives in 2009. He also led Aston Martin to independence from Ford earlier this year and the car we're riding in, the DBS, is the first to be launched since.
You Saw It in Bond
He's an engaging character, Bez. The recording of our fairly committed tour of the Warwickshire countryside also features him peppering his technical explanations with sound effects, patting my hand as he checks to see if I'm OK after the brake test and essentially refusing to go anywhere until I've killed a bee that's buzzing around in the seatless rear of the Aston Martin DBS. Odd. Happy to race around the world's most dangerous circuit in the rain at the dead of night, but terrified of insects.
The Aston Martin DBS won't cause him any sleepless nights. Once a new car selling 500 each year would have made or broken Aston. No longer; the DBS will be the smallest seller in a six-model range, and half the first year's production has been sold in the U.K. alone. Being the wheels of the most popular Bond in years, particularly when — pop-out PPK excepted — Bond's newfound realism means there's little difference between this and the car Daniel Craig drove, hardly limits your sales prospects.
Success was never in doubt. Other than being one of the first to ride in the DBS, what we wanted to discover was how we should see it. According to Aston it "bridges the gap" between the DB9 and the racing DBR9. On paper it looks like Aston's take on the 911GT3 or 430 Scuderia; it's 143 pounds lighter than a standard manual DB9 with its restyled, harder-edged carbon-fiber panels, carbon-ceramic brakes, stripped-out cabin and manual transmission. But in price (likely to be around $200,000), timing and power (up 13 percent to 510 horsepower at 6,500 rpm and 420 pound-feet at 5,750 rpm), it could be seen as a Vanquish replacement. The way Bez sees it determines how it will drive.
Fly Like a Butterfly
"From a price position this is a Vanquish replacement, but from a character position it is not," he says. "A Vanquish is like a David Nash sculpture. It has stunning forms but it is not integrated or sophisticated. The brakes need a lot of force, the gearchange needs a lot of attention. It gives you a lot of satisfaction, like riding a wild horse. But this is a completely different horse. It is quicker, it brakes better, but it has better comfort, it has everything. It is very refined and high-technology. It attracts the same customer but is a different car."
Different how, exactly? "If you talk about edgier, harder, of course it goes around the Nürburgring half a minute faster than the Vanquish but it is so much smoother in how it does it. This is the interesting thing; a lot of people may see more performance as edgier. But Muhammad Ali was an elegant boxer, very smooth but very strong, and a sprinter is a very elegant mover. I see this performance as best if it is smoother, softer."
But there are plans for a harder, lightweight Aston. "We will have at some stage such a lightweight car with the V8 Vantage. We will take weight out, comfort out and noise insulation out. But they make you look stupid if you drive them slowly. The DBS is absolutely perfect for daily use."
Carbon Footprint
So let's find out. From the outside, the DBS looks like what it is: a steroidal DB9; though I'm not sure if you improve the standard car's near-perfect proportion and detail by adding spoilers and venturis. You do demonstrate where the extra money has gone, and for most buyers in a supercar market gone supernova, happy to spend as much with Aston as Aston will let them, that will be enough. Our car is a prototype; largely correct, but lacking the final grille, only three of which exist and are in Pebble Beach, California, for the car's official unveiling.
Nearly half the car's weight saving comes from the carbon-fiber panels, hood, deck lid and front and rear wings. Aston has developed a new "surface veil" treatment that coats the carbon panel with a 200-micron-thick glass and epoxy layer to produce a perfect paint finish and prevent the carbon weave from showing through.
Elsewhere, it's a feature; the underside of the hood, the wing mirror struts, the door caps. The new front splitter is also carbon. The carbon-ceramic brakes are a first on a road-going Aston and save almost 28 pounds of unsprung mass. The superb paddle-shift-operated ZF six-speed automatic transmission will be offered as an option later but at the same 88-pound weight penalty as in the standard car. The wheels are 20 inches in diameter and wear Pirelli P Zero rubber measuring 245/35 front and 295/30 rear.
Mass Hysteria
The interior is also DB9 plus 20 percent. Even the "comfort" seats look like they ought to have harnesses; carbon-backed, ultrathin lightweight seats are a no-cost option and the door tops are bare carbon, too. The switchgear sprouting from the polished central console is all thick nuggets of aluminum now; no Ford-group borrowings here. The crystal key slots into the starter button in the center of the dash, but I don't see Bond referring to it as an "emotion control unit," as Aston would like him to.
Its official 3,737-pound curb weight includes the standard seats, but the lightweight seats cut another 44 pounds from the mass. Either way, this is a heavy car. The optional seats have fixed backs but adjust for rake, and their exposed carbon and Kevlar shell is just 3mm thick. Aston even claims that the suede-effect leather trim and carpet fibers have been specially chosen for their lightness; shame the typical buyer is pot-bellied.
They can call it what they like when it gives you access to performance like this — Aston says the DBS will hit 60 mph in 4.3 seconds and top out at 191 mph. The result of more power and less weight is predictable in theory but still slightly shocking in practice. In the time it takes Bez to get his right foot in, the DBS has leapt from exit to the apex and we're back on those monstrous brakes. The car is wider but it feels more agile by some margin, both in its instant accelerative ability and in the composure with which it sweeps through bends.
More of Everything
Early DBSs suffered from a stiff, slightly awkward ride but this car finally seems to have it nailed; it manages to round off the worst of the harshness of these coarse, potholed roads while keeping the body in check. As Bez promised this is clearly not a hard-core, compromised, lightweight street racer; I could tolerate this ride all day.
But the DBS won't be a pushover; the traction is evidently mighty but the back end squirms under the hard acceleration. Bez is plainly a very skilled driver but even he fluffs a few changes, testament to the difficulty of managing a 5.9-liter 48-valve V12 through a six-speed manual box.
And what about the stuff we can't gauge from the passenger seat? "You will have a different sensation to the DB9," Bez promises, "but not in the sense of it being harder. It will feel more agile even if it is wider. It is more muscular but not without feel. You can take your big toe and feel the sensitivity in the brake, but it's not soft. The gearshift in a Porsche doesn't give you enough of a reaction, it's too soft. This is more rounded. The steering is good but we can get it better; it's not quite where the braking is yet."
So the DBS claims to offer more of everything — more power, more drama and more dynamism. And more importantly to Aston, more A-grade global exposure than an outfit this size could ever pay for, and more customers paying more money. But does it offer more enough to be twice the price of the Vantage? When we lever Bez out of the driver seat, we'll tell you.
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