RE: Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Manual
Discussion
It would most likely be my first car purchase if a lottery win came my way.
krisdelta said:
Lovely to see the V12V with another manual gearbox, but why oh why hobnail it with a weirdly configured shift gate that will grate every time the car is used?
"Hobnailed" how?A dog-leg 'box harks back to competition transmissions of old, where the straight plane from 2-3 and 4-5 was deemed quicker where it mattered than in a conventional H-pattern.
I think this is an absolutely inspired move my Aston Martin.
Possibly the most desirable car on sale today
A few years ago I was not to convinced on Aston's line up, the V8 was getting serious competing from the Jag and Ferrari were really pushing things on engine wise. Aston styling was very similar and releasing cars like the vantage (very nice) but it felt more like a face lift than new car.
Fast forward a few years and things seem a lot better, new DB9 looks good and the V12 Vantage is arguably one of Aston's best ever cars, big engine + small car usually = win more so here as the price is very competitive and it kind of has no rivals really everyone has gone high technology FI not N/A V12 for their compact sports cars
I like it's manual but must confess I'd wish they'd stuck with a conventional 6 speeder from the review it sounds like the box is a bit of a faff
Fast forward a few years and things seem a lot better, new DB9 looks good and the V12 Vantage is arguably one of Aston's best ever cars, big engine + small car usually = win more so here as the price is very competitive and it kind of has no rivals really everyone has gone high technology FI not N/A V12 for their compact sports cars
I like it's manual but must confess I'd wish they'd stuck with a conventional 6 speeder from the review it sounds like the box is a bit of a faff
Pennyroyal Tea said:
"Hobnailed" how?
A dog-leg 'box harks back to competition transmissions of old, where the straight plane from 2-3 and 4-5 was deemed quicker where it mattered than in a conventional H-pattern.
I think this is an absolutely inspired move my Aston Martin.
Possibly the most desirable car on sale today
I'm thinking there's so much torque that starting in second would provide sufficient progress in normal driving, leaving the first/reverse only for car parks and three point turns. That would make the layout very handy.A dog-leg 'box harks back to competition transmissions of old, where the straight plane from 2-3 and 4-5 was deemed quicker where it mattered than in a conventional H-pattern.
I think this is an absolutely inspired move my Aston Martin.
Possibly the most desirable car on sale today
Pennyroyal Tea said:
krisdelta said:
Lovely to see the V12V with another manual gearbox, but why oh why hobnail it with a weirdly configured shift gate that will grate every time the car is used?
"Hobnailed" how?A dog-leg 'box harks back to competition transmissions of old, where the straight plane from 2-3 and 4-5 was deemed quicker where it mattered than in a conventional H-pattern.
I think this is an absolutely inspired move my Aston Martin.
Possibly the most desirable car on sale today
I loved the weighty, positive action in my V8V and the idea of training my brain to do something different to what I've always driven seems like a tax on the enjoyment of what is otherwise a spectacular car. It's funny; I never think of the clutch in my car as being particularly heavy or requiring effort, but whenever I drive our old Polo, I really have to adjust to the seemingly total lack of resistance from either clutch or gearshift. My car was in for a week last year (having some hit and run damage by a bus repaired), so I was in the Polo for a week. When I got back into my car, the clutch really did feel like a single leg press with a small amount of weight on the machine.
krisdelta said:
I'm not old enough to appreciate the heritage of the transmission I loved the weighty, positive action in my V8V and the idea of training my brain to do something different to what I've always driven seems like a tax on the enjoyment of what is otherwise a spectacular car.
Me neither (albeit I do appreciate it), but if you spend some time with such a gearbox, it quickly becomes second nature, and (IMO) far more intuitive. I loved the weighty, positive action in my V8V and the idea of training my brain to do something different to what I've always driven seems like a tax on the enjoyment of what is otherwise a spectacular car. 
ORD said:
Hmmmm. Aston Martin puts out a car with a terrible 7-speed manual gearbox adapted from a terrible auto box and is praised for it.
Contrast the response to Porsche's (much better) 7-speed box adapted from the PDK auto
The Aston's auto was a robotised manual (and thus a crap auto), so presumably a slightly different process adapting it compared to a double clutch jobby, so it's conceivable that it's less offensive?Contrast the response to Porsche's (much better) 7-speed box adapted from the PDK auto
I'd also imagine 6 litres of V12 help make it more appealing as opposed to the Beetle's box of tricks
The review makes the gearbox sound disappointing and also that Dan hasn't driven a manual car of any kind for a while.
A dog-leg is such a good idea, sacrifice 1st to 2nd for a better 2nd to 3rd, 4th to 5th. Forget 0-60, re-focus on real world road driving.
I really hope it's not as disappointing as it sounds. The previous V12 Vantage 6 speed gearbox was lovely, very slick and precise. With the means I would buy one regardless. It's looking almost reasonably priced at £140k these days. Surely for noise and interaction alone this would be a lot more fun, more of the time than a McLaren 570S or 911 Turbo?
It would have been interesting to read how it compares to Aston's Sportshift III.
A dog-leg is such a good idea, sacrifice 1st to 2nd for a better 2nd to 3rd, 4th to 5th. Forget 0-60, re-focus on real world road driving.
I really hope it's not as disappointing as it sounds. The previous V12 Vantage 6 speed gearbox was lovely, very slick and precise. With the means I would buy one regardless. It's looking almost reasonably priced at £140k these days. Surely for noise and interaction alone this would be a lot more fun, more of the time than a McLaren 570S or 911 Turbo?
It would have been interesting to read how it compares to Aston's Sportshift III.
ORD said:
Hmmmm. Aston Martin puts out a car with a terrible 7-speed manual gearbox adapted from a terrible auto box and is praised for it.
I have long said that English car brands can do no wrong on PH, and this is fairly strong confirmation.
Contrast the response to Porsche's (much better) 7-speed box adapted from the PDK auto, which was rightly said to be a real disappointment.
How exactly are you judging the relative merits of the Porsche and Aston gearboxes?I have long said that English car brands can do no wrong on PH, and this is fairly strong confirmation.
Contrast the response to Porsche's (much better) 7-speed box adapted from the PDK auto, which was rightly said to be a real disappointment.
Zod said:
ORD said:
Hmmmm. Aston Martin puts out a car with a terrible 7-speed manual gearbox adapted from a terrible auto box and is praised for it.
I have long said that English car brands can do no wrong on PH, and this is fairly strong confirmation.
Contrast the response to Porsche's (much better) 7-speed box adapted from the PDK auto, which was rightly said to be a real disappointment.
How exactly are you judging the relative merits of the Porsche and Aston gearboxes?I have long said that English car brands can do no wrong on PH, and this is fairly strong confirmation.
Contrast the response to Porsche's (much better) 7-speed box adapted from the PDK auto, which was rightly said to be a real disappointment.
The PDK-adapted 7 speed in the 991 isnt great, but it is perfectly usable. It nonetheless got slated by a lot of journos.
7 gears is plain silly. We deserve manual boxes built as manual boxes, not adapted from autos with too many gears.
All that said, I do quite like the idea of having 2 and 3 in the same plane.
I
"Hobnailed" how?
A dog-leg 'box harks back to competition transmissions of old, where the straight plane from 2-3 and 4-5 was deemed quicker where it mattered than in a conventional H-pattern.
I think this is an absolutely inspired move my Aston Martin.
Possibly the most desirable car on sale todayI think the word may be 'hog-tied', but having said that, I agree with many on here that a manual change is actually what this car needed, and a fine antidote to today's anaesthatised gear changes, many of which are foisted on the manufacturers / us by increasingly tight emissions regs.
Sadly, I don't have the money for one of these, but if I did I genuinely believe I'd choose it over a Porsche or Ferrari..
Pennyroyal Tea said:
krisdelta said:
Lovely to see the V12V with another manual gearbox, but why oh why hobnail it with a weirdly configured shift gate that will grate every time the car is used?
"price-ress!""Hobnailed" how?
A dog-leg 'box harks back to competition transmissions of old, where the straight plane from 2-3 and 4-5 was deemed quicker where it mattered than in a conventional H-pattern.
I think this is an absolutely inspired move my Aston Martin.
Possibly the most desirable car on sale today
Sadly, I don't have the money for one of these, but if I did I genuinely believe I'd choose it over a Porsche or Ferrari..
twinturban said:
The review makes the gearbox sound disappointing and also that Dan hasn't driven a manual car of any kind for a while ... It would have been interesting to read how it compares to Aston's Sportshift III.
Well, we had two Caterhams, a BMW M2, a Civic Type R, a Focus RS and an MX-5 at our track day outing on Sunday and none of them were autos. Nor was the Zenos. So I'll call you out on that assumption!To expand a little on what was in the review though the Aston gearbox isn't *bad* by any means. And there's torque enough to pull away in second if you so wish, which makes roundabouts and suchlike less of a faff. But because of the need to isolate and ring-fence reverse against mis-shifts and the subsequent bias to the fourth-fifth plane it's actually quite hard to cross from first to second-third or back from, say, fourth to third. Again, not necessarily a problem because it'll pick up from 50mph or so in fourth and you don't *need* third for anything but tighter corners. But that's not to say you might not *want* to use it, just for the fun of it. I did many miles on that Getrag dog-leg in the 190 2.3-16 and really appreciated the layout in that car. And criticisms of this installation don't relate to the dog-leg arrangement, more the nuances of finding the gear you want. I'm sure you'd get used to it and - personally - I quite like the fact the car demands you apply yourself to make the most of it. That's consistent with the whole package in fact.
That's also why I actually quite like the Sportshift transmission, and I know I'm in a minority there. When we did the launch for the second-gen V12 Aston said one of the motivations for choosing it was that it's actually lighter than a manual and, of course, significantly lighter than a dual-clutch. Yes, that comes with compromises in refinement and smoothness. But ones that kind of suit the car's raw nature.
I think a lot of the criticisms for gearboxes like that come from people who expect them to work like autos or dual clutches. If you keep your foot nailed and just expect it to shift like that you'll get that horrible pause, lurch and jerk. If you consider the shifting process as you would a manual, match the revs and lift off to let the shift go through it's a lot smoother and faster than many would have you believe. And at maximum attack has some of the aggression of a proper sequential. Some of the early ones in Ferraris, Astons, Lambos and the R8 *were* pretty bad. But the Sportshift III is, I think, quite an exciting gearbox to use.
Again, it requires the driver to think, plan and apply themselves to the process of selecting the right gear and time to deploy it. But that is what marks the V12 Vantage - manual or Sportshift - out from the more instant gratification offered by the competition. Each to their own but - personally - I find that very appealing about the Aston, never mind if it's 'slower' on paper.
Hope that helps!
Dan
Edited by Dan Trent on Wednesday 18th May 11:28
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