“We are introducing our new model year. Wouldn't you like to stop by and take a look at the Aston Martin brand? " It sounded like this in an email a few days ago. Aston Martin. Do you have a slight twitch over your skin? Do your hair get up, does it cool down your back, does it chuckle happily in the stomach, as if butterflies had fallen in and put you back in the first phase of great love?
Aston Martin appointments are accepted. Always. The first principle of the petrolhead. Of course the English are quirky. But anyone who seriously calls his car key “emotion control unit” without letting the facial muscles slip, should be taken seriously - it could be the truth.
Aston Martin V12 Vantage S
"Emotion Control Unit"
Hardly a few years go by when you meet the Aston Martin models with their character faces like an old love from school. The radiator grille and proportions of the Aston Martin from modern times have burned themselves into the hit list of the most emotional automobiles within a short time. At the top. Like the face of first love. You recognize them immediately. You can always recognize an Aston Martin - immediately. Sports car proportions cannot be better represented. As long as you stay in the GT range, the Gran Tourismo. And that is the playing field of the James Bond house brand.
Those who do not delve deeper into the models of the brand will say: they are all the same. Yes. Somehow, all Aston Martin are the same, cool. Classic layout, engine front, gearbox flanged to the rear axle, rear-wheel drive, the seat as far as possible shifted in the direction of the rear axle. The nose is full of character, a thick wheelwork.
When the Vantage was born it actually had an eight-cylinder. Free sucking. Heavenly sound. And then you must have come up with the idea on a warm summer day in Gaydon, why not combine the rather manageable Vantage (just under 4.4 m) with the 6.0 liter V12? Now the wind doesn't even fit uncompromised through the engine compartment, but the V12 Vantage, Roadster S stands in front of me without a roof. Because sound arrives best without a filter!
SSSsssssssssssurrr-katschummmpp. The starter sound of a V12 is the last unbeaten bastion before we all sit in self-propelled electric bucket. Starting V12, a task that should be on every bucket list. The inimitable “whirring of the starter”, which cannot be put into letters, and the subsequent barking of the twelve cylinders when the first burst of burned fuel rushes out of a 6-liter displacement. Goose bumps.
A Vantage V12 S Roadster is driven open. Even if the California sun wants to sizzle your brain away. Fortunately, we drive the Vantage in the Eifel. Near the legendary Nürburgring-Nordschleife. You can topless here even in summer, there is already a cloud or a cool, shady spot between the woods. Aston Martin has had a test center up there for several years. The performance qualities are refined not only for PR work, but also in a very down-to-earth manner. And you can feel the fine-tuning.
Especially with the V12 Vantage. Despite 12 cylinders, close to the front axle, there is no form of excess weight that can be experienced. GT roadsters have something like that sometimes, and you don't even notice when you stroll up and down in front of the yachts on the Coté d'Azur at idle. But here - on the patchwork quilt of the L10 between Hoher Acht and Adenau you will understand the fine-tuning that has been put into these British athletes in Gaydon and at the development center in the Eifel. It is no coincidence that in the hairpin in front of Adenau you can feel exactly how much grip the front axle can build up when decelerating. Steer to the point, the long bonnet falls flat in front of your nose, the apex of the curve is beheaded by the carbon flipper of the Vantage V12 S.
573 PS top without
620 Nm without any supercharging - falling linearly over you. Free-aspirating engines are allowed to trumpet what is disgracefully called the “combustion process” in a drama, because envy of turbo engines causes the exhaust system to turn red.
The Aston Martin V12 Vantage is not one of the models where you get the extra dose of adrenaline delivered only in the border area. Get in, feel leather. Think of the aluminum body, the erotic shape of the butt with its effective rump and the tailpipes that look almost modest in the Super GT range.
That one achieves Tempo 323, one believes the British, without having been on the highway. The solid feeling with which the Aston Martin V12 Vantage Roadster introduces itself is shocking for the first contact. Also here in the Eifel, the interior does not wriggle, it does not crackle. Despite the roof down, massive violence of the elements and happy roaring combustion engine, the Vantage Roadster throws itself into the next hairpin bend with a control that you do not expect a work of art.
More sculpture than sports cars?
Emotion Control Unit - actually the right name for the whole Aston Martin company, not just for a key!
The Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster is sculpture, artwork and GT. It will take 0 seconds from 100 to 4. Depending on how you pluck the accelerator and how successfully the porn power of the V12 can be stamped in the highway. The fact that you can take more than two credit cards with you on your trip with a trunk volume of almost 300 liters has a calming effect. Even if a look into the Price list for Herzkasper alarm ensures.