CAR AND DRIVER: 2011 Aston Martin V12 Vantage – Comparison Tests
Posted: November 16th, 2010 | Author: RFR | Filed under: RFR Media
Rocket Science: Back to the lab with five very serious projectiles.
BY TONY SWAN, PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLIE MAGEE
How fast is fast? How fast is fast enough? Perceptions vary. You might observe, correctly, that this five-rocket salvo doesn’t represent the ultimate liquid-fuel thrust available on today’s automotive launchpad. There are cars—a few—with higher power ratings, higher flat-out speeds, and much higher price tags.
Compared with a Bugatti Veyron, the ultimate example, everything in this collection looks a little more ordinary and a lot more attainable. You could buy the entire group and still have a couple hundred thou left over. But it’s hard to argue that these aren’t some of the most desirable cars on the road. They make us even more grateful than usual that we aren’t quadrupeds. The slowest sprints to 60 in barely more than four seconds, and all can attain 100 mph in less than 10 seconds.
We’d hoped to make this show a little bigger, but the folks at Lamborghini declined to participate. Disappointing. But even with a Lambo in the cast, the star of this show, in terms of sheer wattage, has to be Ferrari’s new 458 Italia. The menacingly wedgy sheetmetal, amplified by the baritone boom of its 4.5-liter V-8, sends parking valets into fibrillating sensory overload.
The Mercedes SLS AMG also got a lot of attention whenever we popped its gullwing doors, a move that could draw a crowd in Antarctica.
This is not to suggest that the other contestants are wallflowers. All three—Aston Martin Vantage, Audi R8, Porsche 911 Turbo—are familiar faces [“Everyday Supercars,” July 2007]. But “familiar” does not mean “same as.”
The Aston checks in with the DBS’s 5.9-liter V-12. Similarly, the R8 5.2 has a V-10 to increase its urgency index. And the 911 Turbo, a sports-car benchmark for more than four decades, emerged from its recent makeover faster (of course) and easier to manage at high speed on challenging roads. The example we have here is the 30-hp-boosted Turbo S version.
We opened the comparo at Nevada’s Reno-Fernley Raceway, in the bleak desert hills about 30 miles east of Reno. That’s where we generated our test numbers, and these merit a couple caveats. Like most desert tracks, Reno-Fernley is dusty, which likely diluted both launch and braking performance a bit. Also, the skidpad’s unswept surface, bumpy paving, and tight radius (180 feet) diminished lateral-acceleration results.
We drove west from Reno-Fernley, to sparsely populated roads in the Sierra Nevada. The High Sierra experience—unknown public two-lanes, sometimes requiring extraordinary responses—revealed behavioral traits and capabilities that the racetrack could not.
Extraordinary, of course, is what these machines are. But inevitably, some emerged as more extraordinary than others.
It’s an oversimplification to characterize this car as a mere engine swap, but that’s the essence of the V-12 Vantage. Bolting in the 5.9-liter V-12 increases curb weight by about 150 pounds, to 3738; puts a little more of the car’s mass on the front axle (52.6 percent versus 49.4); and reduces its 0-to-60-mph time to 4.2, 0-to-100 to 9.2, and the quarter-mile to 12.5 at 117.
Those are pretty serious stats, ones that slightly upstage the flagship DBS; plus, the V-12 Vantage wears the supercar mantle more comfortably than does the V-8 model. However, the V-12 is only a tenth quicker to 60 mph, and two-tenths quicker in the quarter-mile, than the last V-8 Vantage we tested. And the Aston trails the Audi by a half-second across the board—the Ferrari, the Porsche, and the Mercedes by considerably more. At 140 mph, the other cars have all become little dots up ahead on the horizon.
The story was the same in most other areas of performance evaluation. The Aston’s chassis was as good as any in terms of rigidity, and its steering drew positive reviews, particularly for on-center feel. But the Aston’s transient responses aren’t super crisp. Sure, 67.8 mph is a swift lane-change speed, but the other cars all snaked through at more than 70 mph. And in our High Sierra frolic, the Vantage sometimes had to work hard to keep pace.
The exception to the foregoing was the braking test. Equipped with carbon-ceramic rotors and sticky Pirelli P Zero Corsas, the Aston went from 70 mph to all-stop in 156 feet, tying the best-in-test Audi.
Assessed as a place to be while the miles whistle past, the Aston fared well, thanks to gorgeous interior materials and décor, plus seats that were as supportive as any, and more comfortable than most.
We were also pleased that the Vantage comes only with a manual gearbox, one of two so equipped in the test, although this exposed one of two ergonomic demerits. The high center console made hasty shifting awkward—our Reno-Fernley lap king peeled a little chunk out of his elbow with one upshift. And the car’s high cowl limited forward sightlines.
Distinguished from the V-8 Vantage by its louvered hood—they’re functional, by the way—the Aston’s classic styling drew appreciative stares from passersby (when it wasn’t being upstaged by the Ferrari). And the yowl of the V-12 as it climbed toward redline triggered primal pleasure receptors in our brains. But in this group, the Aston scores as the V-8 Vantage did back in our 2007 comparo: “an 8/10ths car in a 10/10ths game.”
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