Yahoo Autos The Aston Martin Vulcan Has a "Mach 3" Drive Mode
Pretty much everything about the Aston Martin Vulcan is crazy. Maybe that's why Aston only built 24 of them. It's like a TVR Speed 12 done right, a striking concept car that can take a track-day beating, as it was built by a team of endurance racers.
Instead of turning the street-legal One-77 into a track car, Aston Martin started the Vulcan project with a clean sheet of paper and a 7-liter naturally-aspirated V12 as paperweight. This giant engine produces 820 horsepower at 7750 rpm, and 575 lb.-ft. of torque at 6500 rpm, powering the car to a top speed of 204 mph. Linked to a six-speed sequential gearbox, it will also launch the Vulcan to 60 mph in roughly three seconds.
If you weren't convinced the Vulcan is a beast, allow us to explain the drive modes. There's no "Snow," "Tour," or "Sport" here-the modes are Mach 1, Mach 2, and Mach 3. Mach 1, the gentlest level, makes 550 horsepower.
But Autocar's senior tester Matt Prior is no rookie, so after a few laps around the very greasy Silverstone circuit with the car dialed to Mach 2 (675hp), he went for the full beans, turning the dial to Mach 3. And more than 800 very angry horses awoke, creating all the drama a car can produce while you're enjoying the leather seats:
The thing about complicated hybrid systems is that when they fail, a V12 will still survive, given it has enough sparks, gas and air. As in, a lot.
