At lunch last year, billionaire Aston Martin chairman Lawrence Stroll told us that he was taking the brand upmarket. The goal, Stroll said, was to increase profitability, and to transform Aston from a boutique automotive relic, to a functional 21st century business.
Our recent time behind the wheel of a nearly $300,000 DB12 Volante in Malibu demonstrated the impact of his mission. Aston exterior design has always been top tier, but recent interiors have felt borderline anachronistic. The leathers were always lovely, but there was too heavy a reliance, especially in high-touch areas, on Piano Black and Carbon Fiber, two fancy synonyms for Plastic. And, unable to afford bespoke technological architecture, the brand’s cars sported inelegantly grafted flip-up TomTom screens or near-obsolete iterations of Mercedes’ COMAND system.
All of that is Vanquished. The DB12 Volante’s interior was resplendent. On the door panels, a rich expanse of matte-varnished wood surrounded quilted tan leather and brogued metal Bowers & Wilkens speaker grilles. More veneer backed the headrest, providing yacht-like references. Another sculpted wooden piece splayed Y-like from the center console, and in its frame sat a bespoke infotainment touchscreen, just like a real ultra-luxury car! Moreover, Aston thoughtfully equipped its interface with hard buttons and knurled metal scrollers for commonly used features like climate control, seat heating and cooling, and drive mode configuration.
These last buttons got a workout in the mountains and canyons. Winter rains and mudslides had just ceased. The California sun was warm and perfect, and the Santa Monica mountains were verdant, contrasting with our metallic ultramarine DB12. We put down the top—it retracts in just 14 seconds—and never considered raising it again.
The DB’s twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 pumps out 671bhp and 590 lb-ft, causing it to feel quick at wide-open throttle: 0-60 mph takes just 3.6 seconds; top speed is 202 mph. But the coordination between the gas pedal and the 8-speed ZF automatic transmission is less than balletic. Shifting manually helped some. The engine’s power band, and the Michelin Pilot S5 tires, were broad enough—and the curves tight enough—that second gear sufficed during the drive’s more technical portions. But the DB12 Volante never cracked off transitions, or attacked corners, with the precision of the Ferrari 296 GTS or Maserati MC20 Cielo convertibles we’d recently driven through local canyons.
Blame the DB’s weight. This is a two-ton, 2+2 seat grand tourer, not a track day special. When we opened it up in the mountain sweepers and on the coastal highway, it rewarded us with gobs of effortless power, mellifluous exhaust tones, and the envious stares of onlookers, who took in its mesomorphic flares—especially that ass!—with reverential respect, something that’s often lacking in our on-road audience members when we’re testing flashy Italian convertibles.
This reminded us why it is important to have many cars. Each one is a costume, to be put on or taken off, for specific occasions. This DB12 Volante is a sybaritic delight meant for corralling voyages through exemplary California afternoons. We wore it well.
