ASTON MARTIN DB12

YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT, for our final report, our long term DB12 has not only changed colour but also had what can only be described as a significant haircut. That's because our green hardtop recently had (another) mechanical tantrum, so has gone home early with just over 6,000 miles on the clock. More on that on TopGear.com.

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Still, one upside of the spluttery engine is that Aston sent a replacement, droptop DB12 to see out the rest of our loan... just as the UK was stepping into a heatwave – every cloud and all that.

The Volante keeps to Aston's simple recipe: proper fabric roofs and big engines. The coupe's sweeping metal roof is replaced with an eight layer soft top, available in four colours, which can retract in 16 seconds at speeds of up to 31mph.

Watching the Volante's boot deck lift up like something from Tracy Island for the whole thing to unlatch, untension and concertina back is fantastic. And driving with the roof up you could mistake it for a hardtop – there's no additional whistling or noise. It's a masterpiece. Thanks to the spring drought I spent pretty much all the time I had with the Volante with the roof down. Which brought its own peculiar joys.