Andy Palmer is sweating bullets as he outlines his plan to keep Aston Martin from bankruptcy. Seasons of boom and bust have defined the company’s history for the past 103 years at least as much as James Bond tie-ins or racing ever has. It’s a daunting task for a CEO, but it’s also more than 30 C in Italy this time of year and we’re all sweating through our shirts. He doesn’t seem nervous.
Palmer has gathered us in some kind of wine cellar, a Tuscan keep, to share his master plan. He’s flanked by henchmen and women in crisp white shirts, Aston’s chief designer, Marek Reichman, among them. It would be a classic villain’s lair scene except everyone is excruciatingly nice and patient.
Aston Martin is a bit like cricket, Palmer says. Growing up with it, he and his British colleagues assume everyone gets it. But most North American buyers don’t.
“They might know James Bond, or James Bond and racing; but they don’t know cricket,” Palmer says. “We’re not the fastest red car. We’re not the snazziest yellow car. And we’re not the biggest bus.” Aston Martin needs to find its niche.
Palmer’s plan boils down to this: make lots of new cars. Obvious, maybe, but it’s something Aston has never been good at. The DB11 coupe – Aston’s first all-new sports car in 11 years – is the key to the whole thing. It’s the first in a barrage of seven new cars over the next seven years, each with a seven-year lifespan. If all goes well, there’ll never be a year without a new product to keep the revenue flowing. Next up will be a two-seat sports car, then a faster super-GT, a four-door crossover (yes, really) based on the DBX concept, a luxury sedan from the reborn Lagonda brand, and another mystery sports car. An all-electric version of the Rapide will be the last sedan with an Aston badge. Funding is in the bank for the first few models.
Good news for millionaires: there’ll be a trickle of limited-edition collectible supercars too, including the stunning AM-RB 001 developed in conjunction with the Red Bull Formula 1 team. More than 370 customers have placed orders for that $3-million supercar, Palmer says, but he’s adamant the company won’t build more than 150.
But the DB11 is the car that will set the mould and define Aston going into its next 100 years, and it’s the DB11 we’ve come to drive. If it’s no good, it’ll throw the whole plan in doubt.
“It’s the most important car in Aston’s history,” Palmer says. He’s personally going to inspect the first 1,000 cars off the line.
The roads in Italy are, for the most part, terrible. Beautiful yes, but melted and warped in every direction. After a long drive here in the old DB9, you’d have been calling your chiropractor. But the DB11 is more comfortable – that’s the first thing you notice.
At one point, an unseen speedbump rears its ugly self. We clench, brace for impact, say a little prayer for the bumper, and wait. But no expensive scraping or crunching sound ever comes. The car glides right over, soaking up the impact with uncanny smoothness.
The handling was fine-tuned by Matt Becker, who was poached from Lotus. He did a clever thing, making the suspension stiffer laterally, but softer vertically and longitudinally. While the rest of the industry makes stiffer cars in an effort to set lap times and lateral G records, Aston is willing to sacrifice all that for comfort and civility. It’s a decision we applaud on principle, but initially it feels like Becker may have gone too far.
As the speed rises on a backcountry road, the steering feels vague. The car bounces over rolling bumps. But click the suspension and powertrain from GT mode to Sport and the whole car tightens. There’s less roll through corners and the steering starts filtering back information about the camber and road surface. It’s a big car, but the front end feels pointy, with reassuringly precise steering on these narrow roads. Becker got it just right.
When it was unveiled in Geneva earlier this year, the DB11 was met with mixed reactions. The (optional) contrasting roof strake wasn’t to everyone’s taste. But Reichman is a talented designer with an eye for beauty. Watch: in four years the DB11 will look graceful and elegant. What’s happening here is that Aston has made a car that is ever so slightly ahead of the curve, moving the game forward. Compared to its predecessor, the DB9, the family resemblance is obvious. But the lines of the DB11 are harder, crisper, more avant-garde.
The door swings upward and out as you pull the handle. It looks like a car that’s going to be hard to get into, but it’s not. It’s less claustrophobic than the DB9. From the outside, Aston has always made beautiful cars, but now – for the first time in decades – they’re just as beautiful on the inside. The brogued leather on the seats and headliner is an automotive first. The cabin is a place you could happily spend hours, crossing the Alps ideally, but also on Toronto’s Don Valley Parkway at rush hour if you had to.
It helps that Aston inked a deal with Mercedes-Benz to use its switchgear and screens. The navigation system in the DB9 was laughably bad. Aston is an independent sports car company. Ferrari has Fiat-Chrysler. Lamborghini is owned by Volkswagen Group. Developing its own infotainment system was out of the question for Aston.
The engine in the DB11 is all Aston Martin, though. The company put its money where it matters. Pop the hood, which folds forward, and you’ll see the new, downsized 5.2-litre twin-turbo V-12, with a little placard bearing Andy Palmer’s signature confirming that, yes, he inspected this one.
Headline figures for the DB11 are 600 horsepower, 516 lb-ft of torque and a 0-100 km/h time of 3.9 seconds. The two turbochargers – a first on an Aston V-12 – muffle the sound, but they are a necessary nod to fuel economy. The noise at full thrust is akin to a chainsaw underwater. Turbo lag is minimal, and there’s great gob of torque almost as soon as you touch the accelerator. But, most of the time, it feels like a car you want to cruise in, to use the power to overtake slower traffic.
When it arrives in Canadian dealerships late this year, the DB11 will cost $254,195.
Is it the resounding success Andy Palmer was hoping for?
Maybe it was just our test car, but the brake pedal felt odd, not linear enough. The new twin-turbo V-12 sounds better than the prototype we drove earlier this year, but it just can’t match the air-shredding scream of the old non-turbo motor. A dual-clutch gearbox would make shifts crisper, more evocative. And it would be nice if the info screen’s graphics didn’t look so much like they do on a Mercedes. But these are minor complaints.
The DB9 was wonderful, despite its flaws. It was so desirable you forgave it everything. In the DB11, there’s nothing to forgive. It sets the right tone for Aston Martin, a template from which all other models can stray, but never too far. It’s not the fastest red Ferrari or the snazziest yellow Lamborghini or the biggest Bentley; it’s something else. It’s the most beautiful, the one with the best mix of handling and comfort; it’s cricket. It’s an Aston Martin, finally. No sweat, Andy. You’ve got this.
The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.