Riding Shotgun: Aston Martin AMV8
Despite the soaring mercury, Porritt and his team have a relatively short "heat window" in which to operate. Between noon and three in the afternoon is when temperatures will be at their highest--110 to 125o F--and when testing takes place. So it's a quick exit from the rear of the warehouse and then out and away from Dubai toward Abu Dhabi.
It may appear dog-eared, but the AMV8 is still sensuously good looking. The proportions are nearly perfect, balancing the lithe lines of the larger DB9 with a slightly more muscular, broad-shouldered mien.
Porritt knows the AMV8 will sell on its looks alone, but he couldn't care less about style and design at this juncture: "This car is all about handling and ride. Those are the criteria by which the AMV8 will be judged once people dig below the surface."
Carving quickly through the midmorning traffic, the Aston sounds superb. Its 4.3-liter V-8 emits a lovely three-dimensional woofle at low revs that hardens to a crisp and edgy wail at the redline.
"It's not just an off-the-shelf Jaguar engine with a snappier exhaust, you know," says Porritt. "It has a unique block, heads, pistons, rods, and cams. And, of course, it's dry-sumped so we can mount it lower in the chassis for better weight distribution." It drives the rear wheels through a special Graziano manual gearbox fitted with six closely stacked ratios to further enhance performance.
There's no word yet on performance figures but the car feels Porsche 911 fast--good for a 0-to-60-mph sprint time of around five seconds and a 175-mph top speed. "We drove a lot of rival cars, but rather than benchmark any particular one, we took a number of different cars, looked at what they did best, and tried to bring together these elements into the Aston," explains Porritt. That list included the Porsche 911 Turbo, Ferrari 360 Modena, Lamborghini Gallardo, and Noble M12.
...
>>next page