Aston Martin DBS

I took my daughter to college in the Aston Martin DBS. It seemed like the sort
of thing James Bond would do if only he could keep his girlfriends alive
long enough for them to get pregnant. I hadn't considered the strange world
of inverse teenage cool. She was very reluctant to be seen emerging from
such wheeled ostentation.

"Come on," I said, "it's not often you get taken to college in
James Bond's car."

"OK, dad," she relented, "but not actually into the college,
please?"

It might not be much more than a gussied up DB9, but the DBS assaults the
senses with its bodywork slashes and vents and that "Boom, Boom, Shake
the Room" start-up procedure when the exhausts announce the Aston like
a town crier every time you push the key.

Although it isn't actually a key, it's a matchbox-sized sapphire blob, which
Aston calls an Emotional Control Unit. It's one of many things that could be
considered quite embarrassing about this car were you not battling with
agents of a foreign power. Trouble is, when you're in the lower sixth and
there are a bunch of upper sixth boys standing outside the gates, it's
excruciating. Ah, the blackboard jungle, I thought, swinging the long snout
into the college gates. Scarlett squeaked and sank down in the seat.

Eyes followed us in and, as I turned the radio to Secret Agent FM, the twin
Bang & Olufsen tweeters lifted up like mini missile pods at the edges of
the dashboard. For all the criticism we have levelled at Aston Martin
dashboards in the past there is a pleasing simplicity to the DBS fascia.

The big buttons with clear labels are matched by an intuitive radio/CD, with
simple tuning and volume dials, ditto the heating and ventilation. There's
also attention to detail, such as the dashboard down-lighting, which at dusk
sends soft shadows over the grey hues. There is not, however, a lot of
space. The storage space around the driver is tiny and the boot is only just
big enough for a couple of airline cases.

You can now specify proper rear seats, but as there's no leg room, you are
better off with the rear parcel shelf that is perfect for shopping, or a
Walther PPK. The front seats are supportive, but uncomfortable for long
journeys, and the fascia has some naff touches like the upmarket Biro slot
at the bottom of the dashboard and the hidden fog lamp and parking sensor
cancel buttons. The DBS is now one year old and, according to our
correspondent Mike Rutherford, it is being discounted by as much as £23,875
off its list price of £165,500. These are straitened times indeed. Aston
Martin has had to lay off more than 600 full-time and contract staff
recently and part-owner, the Kuwaiti Investment Dar, is considering selling
up to 20 per cent of the company. Cars like the DBS seem to be a requiem to
our years of consumption, at least until the world once more peeps over the
parapet of financial despondency. A couple of months ago the DBS was fitted
with an option of the ZF automatic gearbox from the cheaper DB9. Purists
must have swooned. A wussy automatic? In James Bond's car?

Refer back to our first drive of the manual DBS last October, however, and
it's clear that the Graziano six-speed transaxle is not the last word in
multiplying engine torque. The heavy cable gearshift has little feedback and
is hard to use. There is virtually no flywheel effect and great care is
needed when manoeuvring to avoid stalling or burning the clutch. Also the
gear lever is mounted too far down the centre console for comfortable
changes.

This ZF automatic transmission (which is also mounted in the rear axle) is a
very long way from being a sort of slush-box American auto that slurs
through ratios with all the precision of a drunk collapsing onto a pile of
cardboard boxes. It should be no surprise that it works brilliantly in the
DBS, because it does in all its other applications. When you've got a
six-litre V12 engine, six speeds are more than enough and the ZF's change
quality is tight, with the merest hint of torque converter slip. Put your
foot down and the change down is almost instant, but the torque converter
takes up just enough of the mechanical vehemence to insulate the experience
with the thinnest gloving leather.

Pressing the drive button on the dashboard engages a full automatic mode,
which is disengaged by pulling on one of the leather-trimmed,
magnesium-alloy, steering-wheel paddles, whereupon the transmission is
effectively a manual, with downshifts accompanied by a burst of revs to
synchronise the gears. There is also a sport mode, with a more aggressive
gear-change strategy, throttle responses and down-shift throttle blips.

The DBS has three speeds: swift, wow, and OhMiGod! The last option is just a
twist of the ankle away and even on a dry road the traction control
immediately lights up, struggling to contain the violence of 510bhp and
420lb ft hitting the road. In sport mode it's the tyres that light up and
late one night, with the roads gleaming wickedly with frost, I drove the
three miles from the nearest village to my house with the traction control
lamp a constant companion and the front wheels rarely pointed in the
direction of travel – it's that sort of car. Even on the way to Scarlett's
college I was constantly reminded of the gossamer level of traction when the
engine hits peak torque.

"It's pretty fast," I boasted, mashing the throttle to prove my
point. The ZF changed down with barely a hesitation, the V12's revs flew up
the counter and the rear tyres fishtailed up the road as playful as a
dolphin with a hatchet.

"So it is," said Scarlett, staring at my sweat-beaded forehead.

Notwithstanding its considerable 6ft 3in width, the DBS feels almost
dart-like. In fact, getting it out of London on a wet Friday night was as
tricky as carrying a harpoon on a rush-hour Tube train. The Aston likes to
travel fast and straight and not mix it on grotty roads with hoi polloi in
electric wheelbarrows and on bicycles. For the most part, the steering has
an exceptional feel and linearity, but on slippery roads it becomes
disconcertingly light, with little indication of how much grip you are left
with. In a front-engined car that's not good.

It's a noisy car too, the tyres give off a distracting roar, which the car's
aluminium frame transmits faithfully into the cabin. Body control is sharp,
but not over-harsh; as Bond might say, stirred not shaken. For a car capable
of 200mph it's pretty good, although the enormous tyres flap into London's
pot holes and the front spoiler catches the fattest sleeping policeman.

In practice, then, at all but the absolute extremes of the track, the auto
adds an extra degree of refinement, allows more civilised manoeuvring and
leaves the gear-change hand free for close-quarter gun play. Also, provided
you are relatively easy on the throttle, it lets the engine lug down below
1,500rpm, which keeps things civilised, or would do if it weren't for the
tyre roar and wind-in-the-pipes engine note. Apart from that our only major
criticism is that the pedal box is too small for a pair of size 12s encased
in a decent pair of Trickers.

"Did they like it?" I asked Scarlett that evening.

"I suppose so," she said. "One of the boys asked whether that
was your everyday car and I said, 'No, you normally drive a DB5 with machine
guns and an ejector seat..."

And they say secret agents are cool…

TECH SPEC

Price/availability: Touchtronic 2 £165,500 (manual £162,500). On sale
now.

Engine/transmission: 60-degree, all-aluminium alloy 5,935cc, petrol
V12, with chain-driven DOHC per bank and four valves per cylinder; 510bhp at
6,500rpm and 420lb ft of torque at 5,750rpm. Six-speed ZF automatic gearbox
in transaxle, rear-wheel drive.

Performance: 191mph, 0-62mph in 4.3sec, EU Urban fuel consumption
11.7mpg (Combined 18.2mpg), CO2 emissions 367g/km.

We like: The shape, the steering, the unreal performance and you can
now park it without filling the air with clutch smoke.

We don't like: That fuel consumption.

Alternatives: Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, £110,000. Audi R8, £78,195. BMW M6,
£89,200. Chevrolet Corvette Z06, £62,695. Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano F1,
£197,405. Invicta S1-600, £150,000. Porsche GT3 RS, £95,604.