We take the Aston Martin V12 Speedster for a blast through the Scottish countryside to see how it stands up to real-world conditions
Words: Kyle Fortune Images: Mark Riccioni
It’s raining heavily but there’s still a sizeable grin on my face. I don’t care if I’m getting wet – my only concern is that the next town or village has cause to slow me down to a halt, because as long as the V12 Speedster is moving, very little water gets into the cabin. My face is another matter: ‘Scottish rain blast’ sounds like some sort of facial treatment you’d pay handsomely for at a luxury spa, and it doesn’t come cheap here – the Aston Martin V12 Speedster starts at £765,000. It’s exclusive, too, with just under 90 built – and the last time we asked, they had all been sold.
The V12 Speedster is a limited-series car built from a collection of Aston Martin’s greatest hits: the front elements of the chassis from the DBS, the middle section from the DB11 and the rear borrowed from the Vantage, all clothed in a knee-weakeningly gorgeous body. As the name reveals, it’s a V12 – specifically an all-alloy, 48-valve quad-cam, 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12. Power is a little bit shy of the DBS’s 715bhp, but the quoted 700bhp is ample – as is the 555lb ft of torque driving the rear wheels via a ZF eight-speed automatic transmission and limited-slip differential. With just 88 examples built, the V12 Speedster will be a rare sight indeed – and if the reaction everywhere we took it is a measure, one that will immediately attract a sizeable crowd.
The location? Scotland, because if you want big scenic country, near deserted, and brilliant driving roads then there’s not much better. The weather? Well, we’ll take our chances with that. The route won’t be Scotland’s popular North Coast 500; it’s become so successful that the roads are busy to the point of congested. Instead, our Highland fling will take in many of the roads I used to drive in my youth when heading to Scotland’s ski resorts. We’ll be on roads I know and love, alhough previously I was driving them in a knackered old Volvo 240 DL estate rather than a windscreen-less V12 Aston Martin. It’s late June and we’re heading north around the longest day, maximising potential driving time.
The Speedster here is finished in glorious DBR1 specification, featuring Racing Green paint with white roundels on the bonnet and doors, plus a silver-anodised grille. Windscreen-less cars can look oddly proportioned, but Aston Martin has nailed it with the V12 Speedster. It is rippling with a real muscularity that’s athletic rather than pugnacious, while the rear buttresses (under which you can store helmets or luggage) look fantastic. Together with the beautiful surface detailing in the recesses along its flanks and the DB5-aping intake (a necessary and happy styling coincidence to give clearance for the V12 underneath), this is arguably the most ridiculous Aston Martin you could possibly conceive – but it looks utterly gorgeous.
Slipping into the driver’s seat is a treat, too. If the exterior wows then so too does the cabin. It’s concept-car in its style, with cool exposed carbon and fine metal finishes throughout. Fabric seat inserts feature on the lightweight buckets and don’t just look great but provide incredible support. They clutch you at the height of the cabin-dividing span of bodywork; despite your exposure you feel ensconced in there, the aero screen ahead not looking like it’ll do much to help protect from buffeting. I’ve brought a helmet with me, but previous experience driving this same car revealed that putting it on only adds to the buffeting. It’s actually more comfortable to go bare-headed, although you do have to put to the back of your mind the possibility of a kicked-up stone or any errant flying wildlife – insect or avian – which might meet its demise all over your face. Glasses and a hat it is, then.
There are plenty of detractors of cars like the V12 Speedster, and in part they’re right: these are expensive, ridiculous, unnecessary playthings for the privileged handful, the majority of which will be secreted away in collections never to be driven. This car will be driven, however; I’ve had around 80 miles in it prior to today, and our route should add at least 650 more to that tally.
Having left Stirling following the A84/A85 though Callander, we’re heading for Crianlarich before following the A82 towards Glencoe. The roads are spectacular, a ribbon of meandering tarmac that flows through some incredible scenery, the view getting ever bigger as we head towards Glencoe Mountain Resort. The road sits in the bottom of the valley, sometimes stretching for miles nearly arrow-straight, before being punctuated by sections where the tarmac’s route is dictated by the topography, climbing and twisting as the landscape demands, before opening up to reveal another incredible view and dropping back down into another valley.
Glencoe is mind-meltingly beautiful. there are clouds moving between the mountains giving fleeting glimpses of what’s behind; the moving, rugged landscape with its palette of greens, yellows, ochres, browns and greys making for a stunning vista. But even among the big views, somewhat unsurprisingly, the V12 Speedster is attracting attention. Stopping to skirt around the back of Glencoe, an enthusiastic group gathers wanting pictures. Aston Martins always gain admiration – and this one more than usual.
For all the Speedster’s abundant power, capability and ease, there’s something wonderfully engaging about just trickling the open car along. That openness means you’re so much more aware of your surroundings, with the result being lower velocities than you might be doing in a similarly specified car with a windscreen and roof. For all the visceral engagement, the physicality of the wind rushing past you means you rarely hear the V12’s notes; it’s only really noticeable if it’s quiet when you really wind it up and there are rockfaces, walls or tunnels to ricochet the glorious sounds of the V12.
The V12 Speedster feels like an event, a car that’s defined by its ridiculously open nature but gloriously addictive, too. That it’s so different in character makes it so much more fulfilling to drive. Yes, you’d be just as quick – quicker even – in a DBS, but the V12 Speedster isn’t about numbers but a connection, a rawness and an additional element to the drive that’s long been lost to us as we’ve become accustomed to driving around isolated from our environment in boxes.
After an overnight stop in Inverness there’s much excitement for the day ahead. The route will see us spearing back down south, but only after we’ve headed northwest to the fishing port of Ullapool and beyond to Kylesku bridge. An early start to exploit the light and quiet roads, these become even more meandering the further north we head. Kylesku offers a curious mix of coastal roads and mountains, with the resultant cocktail of changeable weather and a view from the beautiful bridge that changes every time you cross it.
Temptation in the V12 Speedster is building; the roads are so good here, deserted and streaming wet. What follows are some incredible miles giving the V12 Speedster a decent workout. Doing so reveals that it just keeps getting better, the rain not detracting from the experience but actually adding to it. Indeed, it’s the absurdity of the situation that makes it impossible not to find yourself grinning manically as you revel in the purity of the drive, taking driving back to basics.
By definition, supercars are pointless things, but with the V12 Speedster there’s an element in the driving mix that means it can genuinely be enjoyed at speeds that aren’t antisocial. That’s reinforced on the route south, passing back around Inverness towards Nairn, then heading towards Grantown-on-Spey where we stop for the obligatory Scottish delicacy of haggis and chips, before tracing the routes of my youth on Scotland’s snow roads.
There’s no traffic, save for the odd local on the road climbing past two of Scotland’s ski areas, the Lecht and Glenshee. The views here are epic and the roads as memorable to drive as I remember from all those years ago. The rain is now biblical and in the bigger towns on our journey back to Stirling it means many lights and greater traffic. The cabin gets a bit damp, although not enough to dampen my enthusiasm – however ridiculous I might look being rained on at the occasional red lights.
It’s improbable that any of the 88 owners of the V12 Speedster will ever do so, but I’d heartily recommend taking your V12 Speedster for a long drive on proper roads, in any weather, because to do so reveals how very special it really is. Every single one of those 650 miles we’ve covered have been good for the soul, and every one of them tattooed on my memory, while the V12 Speedster has put smiles on everyone else’s faces, wherever we’ve been. If that’s not something worth celebrating then I don’t know what is. The V12 Speedster is a special car – but it’s even more so when used as intended.
