Sampling Aston Martin’s Product Range

4. V12 Vantage S Roadster

The V8-powered Vantage is a highly entertaining machine (especially with a manual transmission), but the biggest surprise of this drive event was the 12-cylinder model. The car is an absolute rocket! Think of it as sort of a British interpretation of the classic American muscle-car. Engineers crammed the firm’s biggest powerplant under the hood of their smallest model. Predictably the results are breathtaking.

This car accelerates like the light beam coming out of a laser, reaching 60 miles an hour in a scant 3.9 seconds, though it feels even faster than Aston’s official figure. With the roof down the noises this machine makes are absolutely unholy, especially when driving through canyons or tunnels, features that allow the sound to reverberate like the reed in a woodwind instrument.

Providing this audio spectacle is a supremely sonorous 6.0-liter V12 that’s good for 565 bhp and 457 lb-ft of torque. The engine is matched to a synapse-quick Sportshift III seven-speed automated manual transmission. Le Mans-grade carbon ceramic brakes ensure drivers can rein in all that power time after time after time.

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