ASTON MARTIN DB12 VOLANTE

Gaydon's new Ferrari-slaying 671bhp grand tourer is ready to blow its top

- RICHARD LANE

Crazy, I know, but a £200k Aston Martin doesn't automatically qualify for Q-car status. And yet... Get your foot down in the new DB12 Volante and an outwardly genteel, wind-in-your-locks poseur of a leather-slathered, canvasroofed grand tourer suddenly appropriates the straight-line pace of far more savage open-air machinery - such as, say, a Ferrari F50 on its merry, screaming way past 8500rpm. How this loafing Aston looks, and what it will do to your internals when the AMG-built V8 is really rocking, don't match.

Perhaps this is the influence of Amedeo Felisa. Aston's 78-year-old outbound CEO, whose chestnut derbies will soon be filled by Adrian Hallmark, latterly of Bentley, has overseen the latter stages of the DB12's gestation. In a former life as head of product development at Maranello, Felisa was pivotal in bringing Ferrari's seminal mid1990s, F1-to-the-road superstar to life, so he clearly enjoys the wilder side of convertible motoring. On his watch, 503bhp and 514lb ft in the DB11 have swelled to 671bhp and 590lb ft in the evolution to DB12. Same V8, now with bigger turbos, tweaked cams and a tickled ECU.