There are things that only Englishmen can do. And we do not mean lukewarm beer with greasy fried fish and mashed peas. We mean more like this: take a ten year old sports car and install two engines from the Ford Mondeo, then put the whole thing on the diet, radicalize the chassis and add a manual transmission from motorsport.
The obscure design may then call itself Aston Martin V12 Vantage S. And she is wonderful.
A car, as it should not be on the market today. The shape, as captivating as the first day. So small, so clearly drawn, so incredibly timeless and just simply beautiful. In addition, just that V12 whose basic design as a six-cylinder actually goes back to Porsche and was then extended by Cosworth for twelve-cylinder, the far from turbochargers and other electronic gadgetry simply uses the power of displacement and the good old tricks of hairdressing to ignite his performance.
573PS and 620Nm, managed in a classic way by hand and released on the rear axle - they feel the joy, right?
The speech of the V12 is clear and clear. In the Vantage S he can breathe through a particularly lightweight and acoustically more potent exhaust system and it seems the six-liter to be happy. With a powerful pounding at low revs, up to this indescribable mix of hissing and howling, as only a twelve-cylinder brings, the Aston masters the aristocratic sound keyboard of the V12 perfectly. Just that he seems a bit more virtuoso than ever before. Wilder, determined, greedy.
If you listen carefully, you will feel this hollow roar of the intake tract, when the throttle valves are fully open at full acceleration, these slight uncleannesses, when it seems as if they are swallowing from high speeds when switching to overrun mode, or the small discontinuities in the idling, the announce his sharp cam profile.
And it is precisely these little things that are going on in the background that do not force themselves on, and yet completely redraw the image of the Aston. Away from the elegantly fast Grand Tourer, to the character-strong driver's car. He does not go over the extreme as the competition from Germany and Italy does sometimes like, he remains in the final consequence faithful - and yet: he carries the sports driver on his hands.
Alone the transmission. Seven gears, because they simply took the automated version and provided them with a shift lever mechanism and a clutch pedal. This explains the "dog-leg" design with the first course in the alley below left. In the case of the automatic variant, this simply resulted in space-saving advantages and it was not possible to change this with reasonable effort for the manual switch. Moreover, this scheme has always breathed the spirit of the sports transmission - which is not so bad in this context.
Sure, you have to get used to it again today and the first one or two hours you are constantly in the Aston V12 S one gear too high. In addition, the centering in the neutral position does not come to a halt in the second lane, where normally the third and fourth would find themselves, but always with some preference to the third lane and thus the lanes four and five. Add to that the fact that the whole kinematics of the Schalterei is something, say, opaque, you end up with almost every gear change in the wrong wave. Whether it's up from second to fifth or down from six to three - you really have to be careful, because the latter can quickly become an expensive fun, despite the 573PS machine's large rpm range.
After all, it is the six-liter actually no matter what gear you have just inserted. Full throttle tears in any translation in such a way that you forget all the problems abruptly. It is above all this immediacy and lack of beginnings that makes the greatest pleasure. If turbochargers do not need to be revved up, no dual-clutch controls and no active four-wheel drive need to be asked for advice and action, but the performance just follows your orders, then you feel a deep, deep gratitude.
Because this honest experience no longer exists today. They are all faster, smarter and easier to drive than the Aston. And yet you are so much closer to it in the core. Because it's not just about lap records, acceleration duels, or lightweight masochisms.
It's about much more, it's about joy.
And you have it in the Aston Martin V12 Vantage S every second. When you see him, his form beguiles you. When boarding, face this infinitely expensive scent of smooth and wild leather, polished aluminum and bare carbon fiber. When starting, when warming up, when giving fire, even when interconnecting.
He is not a perfect car. And that's why perhaps more desirable than all its competitors.
