Overview Seriously sporty but flawed roadster with a sexy soundtrack
Pros Power, handling, sound
Cons Small trunk, herky-jerky transmission, sometimes tricky ergonomics
Value for money Good if you’re shopping exotics
What would I change? Where to start? An extra clutch, a bigger trunk, an electronic parking brake, a gas cap release that doesn’t require contortions to reach
How would I spec it? Exactly as it is, right down to the colour!
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — A completely wonky transmission. An equally impractical trunk. A navigation screen seemingly more suited to a 10-year-old Hyundai than a $210,000+s premium sports roadster. Theses are just some of the reasons — you can add a hard-to-reach parking brake, an impossible to find gas cap hatch release button and more — not to fancy Aston Martin’s new V12 Vantage S Roadster. It really is a long list. And, truth be told, there’s really only one justification for spending so much money on something so compromised.
But, my, oh my, it’s a doozy.
2015 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster
David Booth, Driving
Top down, revs up, paddle-shifters flailing, there’s not much better in life than an Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster unraveling Los Angeles’ famed Angeles Crest Highway on a bright November California morning. Get up early, before the CHiPs have had their morning donut, stow that surprisingly rigid cloth to better hear every last decibel of that sweet six-litre V12, and blast up California’s famed Highway 2 (less scenic, but infinitely twistier, than the famed Number 1).
The seven-speed single-clutch Sportshift III transmission — so herky-jerky in everyday traffic you’d swear Aston Martin was trying to reinvent the Frug or the Bunny Hop — now shifts so precisely that the V12’s torque band seems completely seamless. The suspension that seemed so bloody harsh down on construction-chewed Sunset Boulevard suddenly has the lithe little Vantage rollicking through hairpins as if g-forces were simply a figment of Newton’s imagination. And those humongous — they seemingly fill the front 19-inch rims — carbon ceramic brakes so annoyingly squeaky down in the London West Hollywood’s parking lot shrug off the first law of thermodynamics — at least as it pertains to automobiles — the word “fade” seemingly in this Vantage’s vocabulary.
2015 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster
David Booth, Driving
But, the real reason you’ll put up with this Aston Martin’s foibles — did I mention that you’ll need a bloodhound and a Sherpa guide to find the gas cap release button and the trunk won’t hold a decent fart — is that the roof goes down. That, in itself, is, for some people, enough, those with hair (definitely not yours truly) claiming that the wind through same is reward enough for motoring al fresco.
More important to the true enthusiast, however, is that it brings you a little closer my God (of internal combustion) to thee. In the last few months, I’ve been blessed with driving virtually every monstrously powered car — Pagani’s Huayra, McLaren’s supercars and a Lamborghini or two — and none, absolutely none, can match the soundtrack that accompanies Aston’s full-zoot 6.0-litre V12. Not Ferrari’s similarly V12 configured F12 Berlinetta. Nor Porsche’s screaming V8-powered 918. Nope, for sheer aural delight, the S Roadster version — complete with the 565-horsepower “Vanquished” version of Aston’s evergreen V12 — has no peer (no, not even the flat-plane cranked overture that is the Ferrari 458).
2015 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster
David Booth, Driving
It starts with a crackle on startup, its initial bark just a prelude of the ruckus to come. Idle is a gentle rumble. Gas it up to three grand and it sounds sporty enough, the throaty baritone married to the requisite popping on over-run. But that’s still all standard stuff.
Let the tach needle swing past 3,000, however, and some sort of magical pop-off valve opens to give the full concerto flight. It’s a little like listening to, say, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time: what you think is just going to be a standard — but catchy, nonetheless — rock ballad suddenly starts screaming full operatic concerto when the choir — actually continuously overdubbed tracks from the band members — kicks in. So clean is the note, so distinctly sharp is each of the V12’s individual power pulses that, were the human mind able to calculate quickly enough, you’d swear you could count every single one of the big 6.0L’s piston strokes. I’m going to get all manner of flack for ranking the English V12 over the Italian variants, but I say Aston’s big V12 is as close to actual music as internal combustion gets. That all this Wagnerian drama comes from such humble beginnings — let us not forget that Aston’s sonorous gem started out as two lowly Ford Contour V6s welded stem-to-stern — just adds to the magic.
That the Aston also makes a more than a fair supercar adds a little icing to the cake. Were all the auditory theatrics not accompanied by razor-sharp steering and controllable drifting-style oversteer, the V12S Roadster might still be worth the price of admission. Thankfully, ZF steering box and three-stage adaptive damping shock absorbers are on speaking terms and all that aural drama is accompanied by some serious supercar expertise.
But, in the end, the only reason you’ll buy the V12 Vantage S Roadster — besides its fetching looks, especially in the Flugplatz baby blue livery of my tester — is the soundtrack. Nothing from Italy can quite match its texture, the Germans are far too discreet and even race cars, now that they’re turbocharged (are you listening Formula One?), are not nearly as intoxicating.
There are many reasons not to buy an Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster. But the one justification is nothing short of magical.
2015 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Roadster
David Booth, Driving
The Specs
Type of vehicle Rear-wheel-drive, luxury sports roadster
Engine 6.0L DOHC V12
Power 565 hp @ 6,750 rpm; 457 lb.-ft. of torque @ 5,750 rpm
Transmission Seven-speed single-clutch manumatic
Brakes Four-wheel disc with ABS
Tires 255/35-ZR19 front; 295/30-ZR19 rear
Price (base/as tested) $210,700; $240,252
Destination charge N/A
Natural Resources Canada fuel economy (L/100 km) 22.5 city, 10.2 highway
Standard features Power door locks, windows and mirrors, dual-zone climate control air conditioning, 160W Aston Martin audio system with six-CD autochanger, SB connection, WAF, WMA and MP3 compatability, trip computer, satellite navigation system, rear back-up camera, tilt and telescoping steering wheel, power convertible top, heated, electrically adjustable front seats, leather seats, cruise control, auto headlights, dual front air bags, dual front side air bags, side and thorax air bags, tire pressure monitoring system, heated rear screen, and more
