V12S Manual

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C997

Original Poster:

529 posts

165 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2016
quotequote all
I had the pleasure of an hour in the V12S manual this morning courtesy of those good folks at AM Edinburgh. After the drive and subsequent discussions I had a two hour drive home to think of some articulate way of describing the comparison with my current V12V. The simplest way to put it is to say that the S manual is just better in every respect.

Paul and Simon the AM guys did a great job of explaining the new gearbox and the trick electronics it packs. Apart from one fluffed 5th to 4th change, I had no issues with the box at all. At times I was trying to ram it through the gears like I have to do with my own car but the shift is much lighter and doesn't need it. The shift is quite a bit shorter so being accurate is pretty easy.

The rev matching on the way down is great and obviously better than I would ever be able to achieve myself. The flat shift on the way up takes a bit of getting used to, to keep your foot in but it works and seems to work really well. Still not sure I understand the benefit of it though.

If you treat the box like a sequential and don't skip gears to start with, there is no problem with missing gears and I'm pretty certain you would soon build the muscle memory to be doing 5th to 3rd, 6th to 4th, etc with no problem at all. The demo car has got 15k on it now and as you'd expect it still seemed pretty tight to me.

The S engine feels completely different from my current car, smoother revving and the suspension is much better. We had the car in track mode for most of the time and it was still less twitchy than my car. Suspension in track, sport mode on and AMshift on would be my default.

There's a few things in the spec of the cars that bugged me, the carbon bonnet louvres are optional, paying for the aluminium filler cap, a huge chunk, relatively, for the highline console, and a few other things. Mr Palmer, don't put a plastic filler cap on an Aston, we don't want plastic.

All in all though, I was mightily impressed and the china grey and yellow is gorgeous in the flesh. I'd delete the yellow stripe along the side but apart from that it looks spot on.

First thing on the options list, lightweight seats. First time I've driven in them and loved them as soon as I got in. My back is sore now from the two hour drive up the road in the normal seats (but that could also be the crap roads and suspension on my own car). Second thing on the options list, Mclaren Mauvine blue paint. I'm sure Wikileaks can get the paint code :-)

cheers,




jj525

58 posts

129 months

Wednesday 3rd August 2016
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C997 is a reasonable man. The depreciation thread suggests the difference is minimal, but that post was written by a PHer that hadn't driven the car. Oh my how we can develop opinions with no facts.

woodsypedia

870 posts

152 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
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jj525 said:
C997 is a reasonable man. The depreciation thread suggests the difference is minimal, but that post was written by a PHer that hadn't driven the car. Oh my how we can develop opinions with no facts.
The OP in the depreciation thread didn't state the car was bad or write a review in the third person perspective - he simply asked how people felt the car might depreciate. Oh my how we quickly we jump to criticise others...

cayman-black

12,624 posts

215 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
jj525 said:
C997 is a reasonable man. The depreciation thread suggests the difference is minimal, but that post was written by a PHer that hadn't driven the car. Oh my how we can develop opinions with no facts.
What? That post is from a person who is going to buy one!

sukh_m

1,325 posts

191 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
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Nice write up.

The question is.... would you buy one smile

C997

Original Poster:

529 posts

165 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
sukh_m said:
Nice write up.

The question is.... would you buy one smile
Thanks. Yes! :-)

sukh_m

1,325 posts

191 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
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C997 said:
sukh_m said:
Nice write up.

The question is.... would you buy one smile
Thanks. Yes! :-)
...at 150k?

Flugplatz

1,952 posts

244 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
C997 said:
Suspension in track, sport mode on and AMshift on would be my default.
Are you sure you mean track?

You must have some super smooth roads !!!







cayman-black

12,624 posts

215 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
sukh_m said:
...at 150k?
At Least as there are no discounts, they are to order only,

hornbaek

3,666 posts

234 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
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jj525 said:
C997 is a reasonable man. The depreciation thread suggests the difference is minimal, but that post was written by a PHer that hadn't driven the car. Oh my how we can develop opinions with no facts.
If you refer to my points - then at least quote it accurately. This is what i said.:

"For normal people, and not us Aston owners or previous owners there is no real difference between these cars"

And "yes" I have driven the V12S Manual and have owned a V12V for 5 years and 20k miles. I find the S manual great but not 75k greater which effectively is the price difference if you part exchange.


AdamV12V

4,987 posts

176 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
hornbaek said:
jj525 said:
C997 is a reasonable man. The depreciation thread suggests the difference is minimal, but that post was written by a PHer that hadn't driven the car. Oh my how we can develop opinions with no facts.
If you refer to my points - then at least quote it accurately. This is what i said.:

"For normal people, and not us Aston owners or previous owners there is no real difference between these cars"

And "yes" I have driven the V12S Manual and have owned a V12V for 5 years and 20k miles. I find the S manual great but not 75k greater which effectively is the price difference if you part exchange.
In fairness I didn't think the jj525's comment was actually aimed at your comment, but...

Anyway as somebody who has just sold his 4yr old V12V to the trade yesterday, and is purchasing a V12VSM with LOTS of Q special bits I can assure you that even my cost to change is quite a lot less than 75k (and my car with its Q bits is a good £10k more than a more normal spec one might be).

I'm not saying the cost to change isn't still a meaty chunk, but you are over stating it by quite a bit. Trading an old car for the same new one is very rarely a cheap experience in this price bracket, but it's not the cost to change that really matters as its the depreciation at subsequent date of sale that counts - and we have a separate thread running on that.

C997

Original Poster:

529 posts

165 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
sukh_m said:
...at 150k?
With what I thought were essential options it comes to a lot more than that. And still yes! :-)

C997

Original Poster:

529 posts

165 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
Flugplatz said:
Are you sure you mean track?

You must have some super smooth roads !!!
Definitely track but you're right to wonder, I was surprised how compliant it felt. The surface was reasonable, nothing special but certainly better than the A90.

AdamV12V

4,987 posts

176 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
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Just to remind you all - Chris Harris on Top Gear Extra Gear, drives the exact same car as is going round the dealers right now:

From 2mins in, after the Vulcan piece - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p03xpmd7/top-...

I have my test drive at 10:30AM tomorrow! smile

AdamV12V

4,987 posts

176 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Just back from the test drive and I'm pleased to report that the car is epic!

I've driven a V12VS before so knew what to expect in terms of general refinements and improvements over the V12V and the pre MY16 console etc..., as I'm sure do many of you, so I will keep my comments here specifically to the MY17 and manual gearbox alone.

The gearbox is fantastic, I really found I took to it very quickly. The shift is short and I think I only got the wrong gear once and that was when I stopped to think about it. First time I perhaps predictably set off in 2nd but it just didn't matter, the car has so much power and torque that the reality is that 1st is probably redundant anyway! When driving if you don't think about the gears and your brain just works it out for up a gear or down a gear as normal. Towards the end of the hour drive I even noticed that I automatically slotted it into 1st at the lights without thinking about it too! I am quite sure that within a very short time the whole setup will become 2nd nature. The factory driver said that about 80% of test drive customers just naturally took to it, whilst the other 20% struggled massively with it all, mashing gears etc...

AM Shift does take a little more getting used to, specifically the flat upshifts. I eventually overrode the urge to lift off the accelerator and it really is quite impressive when you do. What is nice is that even when driving at normal speeds with AM Shift on it matches the revs perfectly making for very smooth gear changes 100% of the time, no matter how clumsy you might be with the clutch/gas. I'm pretty sure I will drive with AM shift on all the time - the only challenge was that neither the driver or the factory rep could confirm if there will be a setting in menus to default to "AM-Shift Default On" on the final production cars, or if like the prototype you will have to turn it on each time you start up the car. I made it clear that I had a strong preference for such a feature and "to feed that back to the factory please".

It was the first time I had seen China Grey in the flesh and I have to say it looked mighty nice indeed and really works well with the Yellow accents. If I was going for the Sport Plus Pack I think this combo would be my first choice.

The alcantara dash adds a really special and sporty touch to the interior too. I am so glad I have gone for this on mine now as it was a bit of a punt as I had only ever seen it before in pictures and on the pre-production GT12 at Geneva 18 months ago.



Overall I would recommend anybody who is not wanting to go down the Q route to get the all little bits separately such as the dash, to go with the Sport Pack Plus option. It might seem expensive, but when you factor in the cost of the wheels alone it soon adds up to be quite fair value and makes the car a lot more special and V12V-esque.

Not sure what else to say really as most of my other feedback would be about the improvements in the V12VS over the V12V, but as I put above these have largely been said quite a few times before in other posts, but I will just wrap up to echo what the OP put in that the car is everything a V12V is and more and almost every area really. Its a bit more noisy, a bit faster, a bit more grippy, a bit more compliant over bumps, the lightweight seats are a little more comfy - lots of bits but nothing earth shattering but equally certainly nothing worse or to differentiate it negatively. At its heart its still the same raw and howling 6ltr V12 sports car, just once again with a cracking old school manual gearbox! smile

Roll on end October for the Kermit Green Mean Machine to be born! smokin

(Just in case you have forgotten he is going to look like - here is my best photoshop effort)



Edited by AdamV12V on Friday 5th August 13:03

RobDown

3,803 posts

127 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Great write-up Adam, pleased it was everything you were hoping for

jazzybee

3,056 posts

248 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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I also drove the same car several weeks ago - awesome! I do feel that the natural place for the gearbox to centre would be between 2nd and 3rd, rather than between 4th and 5th, and if that was the case, it would have been so much easier to drive on local roads... At £150k, it is far more than I planned to spend on an upgrade, but if residuals are similar the Manual V12 Roadster, then I could justify the spend... however, a little too much of a risk for me. At that cost, you are up against used McLaren 12C and 650S spyders, which are undoubtedly faster, more modern, and exciting, I don't think you get the same thrill as the Manual V12VS. Great, great car.

matrignano

4,344 posts

209 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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C997 said:
Mclaren Mauvine blue paint.
You could go Purple Amethyst as per this superb Q'd V12 Vantage:
http://www.topspeed.com/cars/aston-martin/2015-ast...

Brakke

490 posts

122 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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so unfair.

In bloody Holland the car is going to be like 250k GBP or more, but if you buy it in the UK its 160K gbp.... bks!

dbs2000

2,681 posts

191 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Buy it in the UK, I'll look after it for 6 months and bring it over with me for you. I'm all heart.

In seriousness, the numbers in NL for these cars are completely mental. When the DBS comes over with me I'll have to have had her a while and then won't be able to sell for a year (or is it more?) else I'll be ruined with taxes.