What’s that? A v12 Aston Martin? On your shitposting website?

Yes. Yes it is. Fight me.

This car was once sold for a starting price of $220,000 in 2011 money. They didn’t sell many of them, unlike the Porsche Panamera it competed against. And if you’re surprised by that, let’s swap brains so I can live in such blissful ignorance.

What you should probably be a bit more surprised about is its depreciation. A bit over 3000 of these were made, making it one of the more rare cars us idiots somehow found our way into. The usually going price for one of these early cars is between $40-70,000. This one was bought for $23,000, because the prior owner, whose wife won it in a raffle, wanted enough money to buy a $23,000 UTV.

The owner before them needed to raffle the cars to make his $40,000 back. You’d think a v12 Aston would sell itself, but this isn’t a v12 Vantage. Or a DB9, DB11, DB12, Virage (wtf even was that), DBS, Vanquish, Valkyrie, etc etc etc. No no, this is the fat Asston. The four door old man behemoth some stuffy rich guy with a bond fixation bought for a bloated price while we were all reeling from financial crisis.

It’s a severely flawed attempt at making a four door sporty GT car. The cabin is a cramped, outdated, and an ergonomic mess. And for such a large car, you genuinely lack interior space. The door cards and wide “transmission tunnel” (or I guess torque tube tunnel, it has a transaxle, that will be addressed later) squeeze the front occupants into little claustrophobic bubbles. The poor dimensions don’t stop there, as the door armrests are completely out of reach unless you have freakishly long arms or no legs. Also, the front seats will automatically raise the seat back as you push the chair backwards even though there is plenty of room to spare, as if it uses the same computer control for the seats as the DB9… funny that.

The rear is also bizarre places to be. You sit in well trimmed bucket seats like the front, surrounded by nice materials and that still too wide center tunnel making the seat next to you feel an ocean away.

It’s almost great back here. I’m almost comfortable.

Almost.

Except the Spirit Airlines flight I took to get here had more leg room.

Look, I’m not that tall, I’m 5’8”. My friend and MSIMA resident Pimp in the front seat isn’t much much taller either. Yet my knees are up the front seat’s ass. It gets worse too. Good luck holding a conversation back there under any sort of acceleration, because nothing separates the cabin from the trunk. Ok no sorry there is a single thin folding flap. Great, I’m sure that will work wonders to dampen the noises reverberating off the “lightweight aluminum rear hatch”. In fact, a lot of this car is made out of “lightweight aluminum”. Depending on your outlook on life, that either means it’s really light or really thin.

You also can’t see out of the damn thing. That low roof is visible from your sight line while sitting in the drivers seat. Meanwhile you have portholes for side windows, and anything outside of say, a 180° view from the front, is functionally non-existent. They honestly could’ve removed the rear glass and had a solid aluminum hatch and you’d be none the wiser.

The poor visibility also doesn’t help in trying to place the car when driving it. You just can’t tell with 100% certainty where the car is relative to you. You’re better off just guessing how far forward the front wheels live and where the nose of the car ends. You see, from the driver’s seat, it just kinda fades off into the distance.

At least sitting in here everything feels nice. The seats are comfy, stereo is fine, materials are quality, and the ride is plush in its softer setting. Buuuuut the “infotainment” controls would look dated in 2005, let alone 2011 (along with all the aforementioned complaints). No shit no one bought this for $220,000! Logically, this is a borderline abomination.

The rabbit hole continues to go a bit deeper too. Like the obtuse controls where a the same buttons are doing completely different things depending on which other randomly placed button was pressed before hand. The only way to check what settings activated would be to look at a barely visible segmented LCD that screen is buried at the bottom of the “infotainment panel”. We could spend hours on all the car’s failing, but I think you get the idea.

So why would anyone want to buy this botched attempted at a stretched DB9 that went buffet hunting?

Well…

That, for the uninitiated troglodytes wallowing in the audience, is a 5.9L naturally aspirated v12. It revs to 6900 RPM, it makes 470 hp, 443 lb-ft of torque, and is one of the main reasons you’ll overlook some of this car’s “charming British character”.

Do you care that a modern v8 Mustang will wipe the floor with this thing at a stop light?

No.

No you don’t.

You’re in a v12 Aston Martin.

The concerns of the proletariat are none of yours.

You are not only better than everyone else, but you know you’re better than everyone else.

It’s a god-damned v12 Aston Martin.

That 5.9L is paired to a ZF six speed, the predecessor to the ZF-8 that everyone’s dicks got twisted over backwards for. It does an adequate job. It’s not a fast as the lord’s ZF 8 speed, but it’s also over a decade old by now. There’s a bit of upshift lag meaning you sometimes need to premeditate shifting by a second, especially near red line. Which this car will let you hit and bounce off of in manual mode. In manual mode, you can use the paddles behind the wheel, mounted to the column for some ungodly reason.

Actually, quick aside, but this was the first time either ever or in recent memory that I’ve driven a car where the paddle shifters are mounted to the column and not the wheel. And I just don’t like it, I want the damn paddles to follow my hands. If my hands are all over the damn wheel, I probably shouldn’t be shifting anyways. So, do what every fucking race car does and mount them to the steering wheel. If you think otherwise, you’re wrong. Or Ferrari, in which case i forgive you babycheeks.

Anyways, back to the transmission.

It’s also a transaxle! Because those plucky Brit’s couldn’t help themselves but make this bloated luxury car whose wheelbase makes the Chilean coastline blush actually drive like an Aston Martin should.

While your spatial awareness is still lacking, the rest of the car communicates to you very well. You can send this car through turns like it’s got half its wheelbase and it somehow all works with you. You feel it’s weight, you know it’s large, but the car just doesn’t care, and with an engine turning your eardrums liquid, neither do you. The only gripe I had was a somewhat vague rear end, but the tires on this car are old enough to remember the first Bush administration so that’s expected I guess.

And the steering, good lord why is so good in this stupid car? Hell, it feels better than my damn STI, in an older luxury executive sedan. This boat is meant for commuting to work or crossing continents not tearing up back roads! Right?! And yet, this Aston’s hydraulic rack was like a breath of fresh air compared to most of the newer metal I’ve reviewed on this site. There’s just enough of the road being filtered through the wheel that you could feel the surface, meanwhile the front wheels will whisper sweet nothings into your hands for days. There isn’t a shred of doubt or much vagueness up front. The weighting is decent, it’s light enough for you to steer this 4200 lb lump of British excess around town but still heavy enough to provide decent resistance for when you drive like a jackass.

Through the few curves back in my south Florida home town, this thing was excellent. It’s every bit the wannabe Aston Martin sports car it’s badged as, to the point where I completely forgot that this is supposed to be “one of the not great modern Astons”.

But let’s be real here, the sense of occasion this car brings isn’t from how it handles and how it communicates. Thats a detour. It’s the cocaine surprise in the center of your red velvet cake. Let’s get back into the powertrain.

Off the line, initial acceleration isn’t all that shocking. The Rapide pulls off 0-60 in around 5 seconds, which is far from special in 2025. Hell, my old WRX launched harder. However, keep your foot planted, let the engine breathe, and suddenly the magic of a large na V12 happens. This things proceeds. It hunkers down and fucks off with little care for the world around it. All the while, bellowing its aging heart out with noise so intoxicating you run the risk of getting a DUI. It’s not a Ferrari-eque wail, but it shouts and scream dirty v12 sounds that only get more intense the further up the rev range you are.

That sound will egg you on to do stupid things. Shift down a gear or two, don’t shift until you’ve past 6000 rpm, and speed limits? Well… uh… anyways you’ll want to continue findings ways to keep that engine shouting. It’s addictive, and you’ll want that excitement over and over again until the exhaust note is burned into your mind.

When I first got into this car, I was fairly uncertain about it. Its flaws are very obvious the from moment you sit inside the cabin, much less drive it down the road. Yet all that early on complaining was quickly forgotten about the millisecond those dual throttle bodies opened up. I was sat shotgun smiling like an idiot, only to then drive it and have my face cheeks start to hurt. Driving this car and messing with that powertrain makes you feel special. After a long semester of grad school, this was the perfect antidote.

For all its faults, it still is a V12 Aston Martin. What’d you think it was gonna be like?