Aston Martin DBS Volante Road Test

I am aware that there are people in the world who can afford to buy an Aston Martin with about as much thought as they would buy a set of underpants, and I look forward to becoming one of their number in the near future, but for now the idea of any car whose price tag extends way, way into six figures is a slightly intimidating one, so I would expect the DBS Volante to be pretty damn special.

And so it is, even in Aston Martin's own terms. It is the more expensive of the two DBS models the company makes, the roughly £9000 difference between the Volante and the Coupé being accounted for by the Volante's folding roof, which incidentally reduces luggage capacity from a mere 186 litres to an even merer 135 litres. If that matters.

The two are mechanically identical, having a 510bhp six-litre V12 petrol engine and a choice of a six-speed manual gearbox or, for an extra £2900 or so, a six-speed Touchtronic automatic. The Volante is 105kg heavier because of the strengthening needed to compensate for the lack of a solid roof, but strangely Aston Martin quotes identical performance (impressive) and fuel economy and CO2 (embarrassing) figures for both.

The Touchtronic gearbox doesn't seem to affect performance figures and actually improves fuel economy slightly, not that this is going to make any difference whatever to someone for whom the price of the gearbox is about as significant as the effect of being asked, "Would you like fries with that?"

All other considerations aside, I would personally go for Touchtronic every time, not because I dislike manuals (quite the reverse) but because I have a bit of a problem with the DBS Volante's clutch. For some reason I find it very difficult to feel the biting point, which means I either stall the car and look like an idiot, or move very slowly from rest with the engine roaring and the air becoming suffused with clutch smoke. I think I have managed about one decent start in four, so you can see why I find Touchtronic a tempting option.

Even so, this might seem a strange choice for such a high-performance car, but the DBS is not really intended for sporty drivers. Aston Martin itself describes the Vantage as its sports model, and considers the DBS to be more of a grand tourer. It's a fair point. The DBS looks very racy, and its straightline performance is appreciably better than that of the Vantage, but it is altogether softer and more suited to cruising along flowing roads than to being hustled along tighter ones.

The one respect in which the DBS has considerably more appeal to the Vantage to the enthusiastic driver concerns the sound quality. The V8 engine of the Vantage is a bit of a disappointment in this area, since it doesn't sound like much in particular until you start revving it hard, but the V12 in the DBS sounds great no matter what it's being asked to do.

Among its other qualities, the DBS has an interior which is a triumph of the art, though I'd be inclined to avoid choosing red upholstery myself. Too brash. In theory, four of you can revel in the sumptuousness at the same time, since the DBS has back seats, but there is so little space in the rear that they seem like a waste of upholstery. Maybe it's for the best, though - it would be difficult to maintain the feeling of superiority which the DBS undoubtedly provides with an audience of as many as three people.

The first Aston Martin built outside UK

The first Aston built outside UK

The Rapide model is also their first four-seat model since the Lagonda Rapide in 1961.

So why is the Rapide being built at a factory in Graz, Austria, instead of the firm's state-of-the-art HQ at Gaydon, Warwickshire?

When the Rapide was first planned three years ago there was no prediction of a global recession and Gaydon was working at full capacity.

New models were on the way and there was simply not enough production space at the factory to build the Rapide.

So Aston chose Magna Steyr, a specialist car plant in Graz which already builds models for BMW and Mercedes, with 240 Austrian workers preparing to build up to 2,000 Rapides a year from early 2010.

Aston have spent the past 16 months replicating their British production operation at their own dedicated factory in Graz, with a small team of Aston specialists training Magna staff, some of whom have travelled to Gaydon for first-hand experience.

The irony is that Aston, like every car firm, have been hit hard by the recession and production at Gaydon has been cut back.

So the Rapide could now have been built in the UK, but the firm had already invested heavily in setting up the Austrian operation.

And having become the first British journalist to have spent a day on the production lines in Graz, I can confirm the factory is an identical replica of the UK plant. The workers even wear Aston uniforms.

They follow the same meticulous quality control levels and attention to detail, taking a month to painstakingly hand-build each car.

It takes 40 man hours to produce the leather trim for each Rapide and nearly 50 to apply a car's nine different coats of paint. And workers like Wolfgang Mayer, a lead technician on the engine assembly, are clearly proud of the fact they are building an Aston Martin.

Wolfgang spent five months at Gaydon learning the "Aston way".

"We are all very proud of building the Rapide, it's a very beautiful car and the best we've ever built at Graz.

"And we all know that Aston is the favourite car of James Bond."

Helmut Wagner is in charge of Rapide production and he says the model has added some "glamour and excitement" to the production lines and the local community.

"Getting the Rapide model has been great news for Graz and there is a lot of excitement in the factory.

"And now we are testing the car on local roads it is also causing a stir in the city."

Aston Martin Rapide a snip at $400,000

Aston Martin Rapide. Photo

Aston Martin importers Independent Prestige expects the New Zealand dollar to be worth upwards of 40 pence for a long time yet - the main reason why it is reviewing pricing for the British-made exotics.

"There are no final numbers but the price of the whole range of Aston Martins is going to be improved," says Independent Prestige general manager Lee Small.

The four-door Rapide, for example, is likely to come in at around $400,000 when it lands here next May/June.

"We are finalising pricing for the Rapide now and it will be a lot better than we anticipated," says Small. "Initially we expected it to be around $450,000 but with the way the British pound has gone, the Rapide will be closer to $400,000."

Aston Martin Rapide from Every Angle

The Aston Martin Rapide was revealed back in September. We've seen it in person, sat in it, and ogled its sharp lines (read our First Look). So what do we have here? Images of the Rapide from every angle, courtesy of Aston Martin. Enjoy.

Aston Martin Releases More Photos of its New Rapide

There’s little argument that the Rapide, Aston Martin’s first four-door sedan since the 1993 Virage Lagonda, is drop-dead gorgeous. The production car was unveiled earlier this year at the Frankfurt motor show, but Aston just released additional photography that has us drooling.

It’s hard to believe anything with a 470-hp, 6.0-liter V-12 could be a family sedan, but that seems to be exactly what Aston believes it to be. A few photos released by the company show a family packing luggage (and a dog) for what may be a weekend getaway. We doubt most (or any) Rapides will be stuffed to the gills in this manner, but it’s a neat way to illustrate the car’s usability.

Other photos released show the Rapide in its natural habitat, blasting through serene harbors and forests on winding roads. Take a look through the gallery to see the Rapide in all its glory.

Vintage Aston Martin Fetches Big Dollars!

On the auction block for the first time in 52 years, this 1950's DB2 model set a new auction record last month!

The chairman of Aston Martin consigned this beauty to RM Auctions (in association with Sotheby's) in London.

The bidding was strong with prospective buyers on the phone, Internet and on the auction room floor. The hammer dropped at 550K British Pounds. (Approximately $906,500 US dollars.)

Other highlights of the sale were a pair of Mercedes Benz CLK GTR's, selling for 1.1 million British Pounds, and a 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Stelvio which sold for 440,000 British Pounds.

87% of the total offerings sold achieving a total of 1.5 million British pounds.

2009 Aston Martin DBS Volante

First, you don’t call the Volante a convertible--it’s a Volante, a cloth-top car that’s reasonably quiet when shut, and because it has a soft lid, one with some useful trunk space that an erstwhile hardtop would’ve vaporized. (Also this is a nominal 2+2, and while not even children would find the backseat space viable there’s room enough in this car for overnight luggage which isn’t the case with many a super-sports GT.)

Second, though it’s equipped with a manual-automatic Touchtronic gearbox (an ordinary six-speed manual is also available), unless you’re stuck in traffic it’s far more pleasurably driven as a paddle shift manual than, say, Audi’s S-tronic, as the shifts are actually smoother when manually called for than in automatic mode. This is because they happen more quickly when under the driver’s control and because you’ve shifted, rather than allowed a computer algorithm to decide when to change gears, you can precisely anticipate when that instant will arrive when the tremendous muscle of the car’s 6.0-liter, 510-hp V-12 will pause, the bootheel of g-forces on your chest will lift for half a heartbeat, and then you’re mashed back into the driver’s seat, resuming the boost-phase mode of the DBS’s haul toward a nearly 200-mph top speed.

Third, should you happen to want to drive the DBS like a sane person, that is to say, calmly and coolly and within the constraints of suburban and even rural constabulary mores—you can do so, even as the V-12 under the hood and the metallic paddles that control the gearbox pretty much beg you to quit forcing the DBS to crawl around town on errands and instead mash the gas and let the car realize its full potential.