Lighter, except on your wallet Aston’s DBS Superleggera tilts at Ferrari’s 812 Superfast. Words John Simister.
We’ve had the DB11 and the Vantage, two embodiments of Aston Martin’s new generation. Now meet the DBS Superleggera, its deep, open mouth not only more obviously Aston-like than those of its siblings but also better able to pass the huge amount of air devoured by the 5.2-litre, twin-turbo V12, re-mapped to 715bhp.
The new car raids Aston’s historic lexicon for its name. The first DBS was the six-cylinder launch version, in 1967, of the William Towns-styled car that soon afterwards became Aston Martin’s first V8. The tag was used again in 2007 on a hardcore DB9 derivative. A Superleggera (‘super light’) script adorned the DB4 and DB5, whose body construction used a system, devised by Touring of Italy, of thin steel tubes under an aluminium skin.
This new Aston Martin, clad in carbonfibre and aluminium over the regular DB11 platform, has nothing to do with Touring’s construction system. But it is (relatively) light, weighing 183kg less than the V12 DB11. This, the power hike and shorter gearing all help towards the DBS’s 0-62mph time of 3.4 seconds. The claimed top speed is 211mph, at which 180kg of downforce is generated, while the availability of 664lb ft of torque all the way from 2800 to 5000rpm should make the pace of Aston’s fastest-ever production car effortlessly easy to exploit.
All of this sounds like a car which we might have expected to be called Vanquish, but that name is now likely to appear on a future mid-engined Aston Martin. Pricing for the new DBS, described by CEO Andy Palmer as signalling ‘our return to the very pinnacle of the Super GT sector’, starts at £225,000.
TECHNICAL DATA FILE SPECIFICATIONS 2019 Aston Martin DBS Superleggera
Engine V12, 5204cc, twin-turbo
Max Power 715bhp @ 6500rpm / DIN nett (metric)
Max Torque 664lb ft @ 1800-5000rpm / DIN nett (metric)
Weight 1693kg (dry)
Power-to-weight 429bhp/ton (dry)
0-62mph 3.4sec
Top speed 211mph
Basic price £225,000
On sale Autumn 2018
