Last time we discussed the Vantage GT8 and we saw how great of a car it is. But if the Vantage GT8 wasn’t already enough special for you then Aston Martin has got an even more special and exclusive car for you, the V12 Vantage V600. Aston Martin went home when building cars.
Nowadays we complain about cars being too much “digital”. Cars that are reducing the driver’s connection with the car. Car manufacturers are moving towards forced induction with turbochargers and superchargers rather than being naturally aspirated. Engines today aren’t as high revving as they used to be earlier. These are just a few of the complaints I hear daily.
But the situation isn’t that bad as we think it is, the true driver’s cars are not completely lost. The Aston Martin V12 vantage V600 just proves that. It has a hydraulic steering wheel with a 7-speed dogleg manual gearbox and a large naturally aspirated engine, the key things of an Analogue supercar.
The idea of the V12 Vantage came when a customer proposed the idea of paying tribute to the analog supercars by making one under the Vantage Line-up, Aston Martin was so impressed with the idea that they instantly commissioned the production of 7 coupes and 7 roadsters and they called it the V12 Vantage V600, the 600 comes from the power it has, 600Ps or 592 horsepower to be precise and a relatively healthy torque of 416 Pound ft. We are not going to talk about the acceleration numbers or even the top speed, this car is special, judging it just by its performance numbers would be a heinous crime. It’s one of the most beautiful cars I have ever seen in my life.
The V12 Vantage has a 5.9-liter front-engine V12, looking at the design there are no huge aerodynamic features that are popping out and that’s because Aston didn’t want to ruin the design philosophy of this car, they wanted the smooth flowing muscular lines on the car to speak for themselves, to express their beauty and I feel very pleased to say that they have been quite successful with their job. The short wheelbase makes the car very agile to maneuver around. The Grip from the front tires is phenomenal, as the rear has less weight compared to the front, the car has a very slight tendency to understeer, but it doesn’t matter when you are driving this car.
When you enter the car, and start looking around you, you get the feeling of being in something very special, you might have driven multimillion-dollar cars but this car feels something else, carbon fiber is everywhere, even in the dashboard the small details add up to the beauty of driving this car, the Gear lever has been made from a single piece of billet aluminum, it’s soft and smooth to touch and has a heavy feel to it, just how it needs to be. Getting used to the gearbox takes some time as the world is much habitual to drive 6-speed manual transmission as opposed to driving dogleg manual gearboxes. Shifting through gears brings a smile on your face every time as you can feel the power getting transferred through the gear changes.
The Quad exhausts in the rear have a strong grunt in them, they aren’t that loud in the lower revs but once you start to push the car through upper revs they become louder and louder, you even have the sports button to make them louder. The car is meant to be a GT car just like the modern-day Superleggera and thus you have the option of adaptive dampers in the car to make the suspension softer while you are going through bumps. The saddlebags in the rear of the seats provide extra luggage storage. One thing in particular that it couldn’t stop thinking about was the attention to detail in the car, the rotary knobs in the car had carbon fiber woven all around them, I never particularly notice the air vents in the car but this time I did and I came to know that they are leather-wrapped. These are just a few of the things I could notice and experience in the brief amount of time I had with the car.
The Aston Martin V12 Vantage V600, indeed is a very special car, it might be one of the last true analog supercars present in the world today and the Vantage V12 pays a respectful tribute to the analog supercars.
That’s it for this time guys
Thank you
Ciao
