Yahoo Autos James Bond's next ride? We drive the new Aston Martin DB12
MONTE CARLO - It takes about an hour to drive from Monaco, the most densely-populated country in Europe, to the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, one of the least-densely populated departments of France. The scenery changes quickly: The mountains appear on the horizon as the skyscrapers shrink in the distance, and the commotion of city life gradually fades into a vast emptiness. The 2024 Aston Martin DB12, a new coupe designated as a “super tourer” by a brand seeking to reinvent itself, feels right at home in both settings.
Unveiled in May 2023, the DB12 replaces the DB11 with a new-look exterior design, a much longer list of interior technology features, chassis updates, and a more powerful V8 engine. It’s not entirely new, but an Aston Martin spokesperson told me it uses about 80% new components compared to the DB11.
Most of the visual changes are found up front, where the DB12 receives a bigger grille, redesigned lights, and a new-look bumper. It still looks like an Aston Martin; James Bond wouldn’t lose it in a parking lot. While big grilles stir a great deal of controversy, the mechanical updates made one necessary here.
“It has a larger grille because it has more power under the hood and that all needs cooling,” Marek Reichman, the head of the company’s design department, told me.
Literally and metaphorically, the reason behind the expanded grille is a 4.0-liter V8 engine that’s twin-turbocharged to develop 671 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 590 pound-feet of torque from 2,750 to 6,000 rpm. It’s an evolution of the DB11’s V8, which was an evolution of the V8 that powers several 63-badged Mercedes-AMG models, but the outgoing car posted figures of 528 and 513, respectively. These numbers don’t tell the full story: They represent a huge increase in part because the V8 is effectively replacing the DB11’s optional V12 that developed 630 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque. That’s right, there won’t be a V12 available in an Aston Martin DB car for the first time in 30 years.
Aston Martin made several changes to the V8 before deeming it worthy of living under the DB12’s hood.
“We chose the turbos, we chose the cams, and we chose the compression ratio. Importantly, we had a huge influence on the powertrain’s characteristics through calibration,” Simon Newton, Aston Martin’s director of vehicle performance, told me. He added that the eight-speed automatic transmission has the same ratios as the DB11’s gearbox, but his team made the final drive 13% shorter for faster acceleration.
