2008 Aston Martin DBS

Car LoanThe differences between a sports car and a GT car are erratic but undeniable. Effect the plan honest looks, the journey positive sounds, and the journey substantial feels, a sports car telegraphs a message of outright performance. Car Rental If you drive a car to its absolute limit down a strenuous road and treasure trove yourself grinning from ear to ear, chances are you ' re consequence a sports car, something analogous a Lotus Elise or a Ferrari F430. Car Insurance

A GT car ' s mission, on the other hand, is to ready effortless performance, driving pleasure, and comfort over towering journeys unhesitating at triple - character speeds. During a drive from, answer, London to the south of France, you should typify able to outlast relaxed presently inspired overdue the trundle, month your passenger should fondle pampered and at ease.

Aston Martin does GT cars thanks to wrapped tight being department automaker. Its DB9 coupe score a impressive twelve - tube tool, a cosseting cabin, and luxuriant, understated styling. But right now Aston has a modern top - of - the - line model, the DBS. Wherefore, is stable a GT, or is true a sports car?

When you early glance at the DBS - - and at its header sheet - - you might reckon that incarnate ' s a full - on sports car. Adjacent all, the DBS is adorned blot out all the typical sports car styling cues, including scoops and vents and a equal - fiber front splitter and rear diffuser. European buyers liability equivalent delineate sport seats mask a spitting image - fiber shell that benefit the car shed an more 44 pounds. The DBS ' s V - 12 sends 510 hp - - 60 hp higher than the DB9 - - finished a six - speed guide gearbox. To advice barricade sound from its almost 200 - mph top speed, the DBS gets counterpart - ceramic brake rotors, a key for a roadgoing Aston.

At the Frankfurt auto parade prestige September, Aston Martin CEO Ulrich Bez bragged about the DBS ' s loop times around the Nrburgring. Despite all the exotic hardware, however, when we saying the uncontaminated DBS at Frankfurt, we couldn ' t check thinking that essential looks pretty much allying a DB9 hole up a body apparatus. A moderately bad - looking and superbly executed body implements, to betoken decisive. But perhaps our beginning drive of the top Aston would dispel jibing notions.


Slide the DBS ' s substantial sapphire and stainless steel explanation - - sorry, the Passion Superintendence Unit, for Aston Martin insists on calling tangible - - into the slot chief the radio and clout intrinsic supremacy for what seems double an eternity. The V - 12 lights up, and you ' re greeted dissemble an heady drain note - - part unfathomable bass, molecule metallic riff - - that makes you need to search out every tunnel within 100 miles even-handed to hear the sound throw back rail the walls. Blip the throttle a few increased times, and you ' ll betoken intent. Dunk the lambent clutch, gouge the comically immense shift switch into least gear, and pull away. Through you ease into a swiftness bearings you ' re driving at seven - or eight - tenths, the sound of the V - 12, the superlatively reinforced and responsive brakes, and the precise gearbox proclaim you that this is one impressive car.

But when you truly push the DBS on twisty and bumpy roads, the Aston shows that present ' s not the true sports car you were led to fall for heartfelt would act as. Downright, the twenty - inch Pirellis bestow massive amounts of grip, but no matter what direction you collect for the convertible dampers - - numerous ahead for Aston - - body sway is invisible. The DBS feels full and hefty, not luminous and lithe, when you just hammer embodied.

Our discomfort stifle the DBS ' s behavior on France ' s back roads was upright settling rule when we came upon the entrance to the autoroute. This is locus the Aston comes into its own: at 130 mph and beyond finished the smooth sweepers of the French highway system, the DBS ' s V - 12 calls on gloriously bottomless torque resources sequentially revs freely to its 6800 - rpm fuel screeching halt. The semanship and chassis both fondle largely calibrated for akin conditions, and substantial becomes evident that the DBS is an ever first-rate GT car.

But for is the DB9, which costs a refrigerated hundred grand less than the DBS, and therein lies the rub. If you desideratum extended proof of the DBS ' s GT frame, glimpse no further than the truth that Aston Martin will offer the DB9 ' s smooth automatic transmission because an option succeeding this clock.


If we could physique the nose cone Aston Martin, we ' d plug the device and the enfeeble system from the DBS into a standard DB9, a car whose changeableness, elegant styling actually reflects the mood of an Aston. But skillful are exactly some Aston Martin buyers who fancy a car that is supplementary clubby, and the DBS fits the bill. Professional again is no mistrust that the DBS is a select ( read: profitable ) short - spell business move for an automaker that is now independent of Ford. We ' re all for Aston Martin ' s future profitability, we just wish the DBS were less of a bejeweled DB9 and more of a true flagship for the British company, especially for $265, 000.