ULTIMATE £12m Aston Martin test! Victor, Vulcan, One-77, V8 Cygnet and Aston Motorbike | Top Gear

yes hello and welcome to the

aston

martin

q branch, not the real q branch of course that's in gaydon we're in the pits at silverstone but we have a smoke machine come on give us a whiff beautiful stuff, we are here to celebrate the special ops

aston

s the rarest the rarest the most expensive the most extreme cars that have ever worn the aston

martin

wings and here they are all presented for your viewing pleasure now join me for a walk around this extraordinary collection of cars I'm going to tell You know what I know, so we'll tell you what it's like to drive them.

Sounds good, excellent. We will start here with my partner Victor. It's totally unique, based on a restored 177 chassis and powered by a 7.3-liter 177 V12 engine, except here it's been retuned by Cosworth to produce 836 horsepower, and to achieve this, all that power is sent to the wheels. rear through a six-speed manual

gear

box. How brilliant it is that he has the suspension of a Vulcan. It has side tubes. of a Vulcan, this carbon fiber body is inspired by the brutality of the 70s and 80s, it even has the Valkyrie taillights and is as subtle as a sledgehammer, but it makes me feel a little weak in the knees just from being beside.

I'll tell you what I'd love, sorry Jack, too slow, too slow, Victor is my partner now and he looks at what he can do. Incredible noise drama, v12 excitement response and a manual

gear

box, this is everything I want from a hypercar. it's just fabulous, it's so aggressive and yet it's well balanced and it's fierce, absolutely fierce, but it's got a long wheelbase so even when it starts to slide it's not too scary, the power of this thing is just fabulous and has a bit of body roll so it's not trying too hard to be perfectly set in its line or anything like that, it just wants to have a bit of fun and show you what it can do.

Hello God, what it can do is incredible, so you can just break off with the left foot and balance the car and then. Stick your nose in all the way to the apex and then just come out with a little bit of force and I actually got a lot of grip, but the brakes are powerful and do I care that you know the gear changes aren't? absolutely instant match, this car shouldn't work, half think it's a

vulcan

and the other half think it's an old 70's perk and yet it works, it works so well, damn, the keys need to be hidden better from early marriage and move on to something that probably needs no introduction, because this is the Aston Martin Vulcan named after the god of fire, volcanoes and other hot things, which really fits because its party piece is shooting flames from a foot long for this side exit exhaust.

Hopefully not while I'm here. Alright? It's Aston Martin's take on the most visceral extreme track toy you can produce. It was actually originally conceived as a track only 177 177r if you like, but it quickly morphed into something more individual and much more extreme when it was new, it cost 1.8. Million pounds, they only built 24 of these and it's powered by a seven-litre naturally aspirated V12 producing 820 horsepower. Interestingly, it's not a stripped down version of the 7.3 engine you get in the 177. It's actually a full version of the 6-litre V12 from the GT3 Vantage Racer at the time, usefully Aston Martin, giving you three power levels to play with, so you can relax with 550 horsepower, 675 horsepower, and then the full 820 horsepower, which really isn't much if you compare it just to other tracks. hypercars like the fxxk and mclaren p1 gtr, but the

vulcan

isn't just about the simple numbers, it's the way it delivers them, here's ollie to explain, you forget that's the problem, you just forget it's been five years since the vulcan came out and other things have come up, i have driven the brabham bt-62 and the mclaren cena gtr and the temptation is to think that because they are newer, they are better, they are more exciting, they are more visceral, come back to this again .

I've forgotten, I've forgotten how intense it is, it's such a big beast to drive, but even here I mean it's surprisingly friendly because of that long wheelbase, although you can't attack the braking in the same way you can. on some of the others, especially not today because we're in michelin sport cup two, not the complete change, it's just the speed with which it takes care of everything, so the suspension has solved any problems you've had. I noticed what happened and no matter how hard you hit the brakes it doesn't seem to bother it at all, it's amazing and this one has had the AMR upgrades so it has extra dive planes on the front and rear wing two stories. so there's even more fall like it needs it and if you compare it to the

victor

it's very different, the

victor

has that little bit of movement and control and this is much longer and stiffer and that motor is so visceral that there's no clue.

The hypercar should be this playful and thoughtful, oh my god I'm not going back, sorry Jack, this one is staying with me for a while, excuse me if I get a little gushy about this one because when I was younger, way back when. I had some hope of driving this car. This was definitely in my top three fantasy garages. The original brief with this was to create something that was closer to art than a car and it's a very good attempt, right? It has those classic Aston proportions. the long position of the hood back and everything is exaggerated, it's disproportionate, it's cartoonish, it looks fantastic and you can glimpse little details of what's underneath, so if you come from the back, you can see the tie rod suspension Internal push, it is simply beautiful, where it belongs. a display case, not a car, and the 2 engine is a thing of beauty now underneath, the 177 has a carbon chassis, is wrapped in aluminum panels and cost when new, a mine melted £1.2m, it was revealed 12 years ago in 2009, but it wasn't until 2014 that Top Gear magazine got one, that's because Aston Martin completely banned any motoring journalist anywhere in the world from getting behind the wheel, so we flew to Dubai and asked loaned one to a dealer. nothing, now I remember reading that story thinking it was incredibly exotic, poring over the details and then I found out they had a slightly faulty gearbox and I was very disappointed, but look, it was a long time ago, a lot of water under the bridge, I think it's time.

I figured it out for myself, okay so the engine in this one is a 7.3 liter naturally aspirated v12 making 750 horsepower once Cosworth had their way and the numbers still have the power to shock the north today 62 3.6 seconds top speed 220 miles per hour so come on just give it a little squirt this way, now you have active bypass valves that open up beyond 4000 rpm and the noise, the noise, just goes into the stratosphere with this scream Heartbreaking, it's absolutely glorious and here's the big surprise I had. I didn't expect you to look at this car and think it's going to be a big, heavy, brutal GT, but actually no, nothing like that, it feels super stiff on that carbon chassis, it feels light, the steering is super light and precise , it's a precise machine, it doesn't feel out of reach on the track, it's more suitable than I thought and now we need to talk about the gearbox in 2014, Tom Ford and I quote I called it rubbish and you know what it is in reality, yes. yes I was right, it's absolutely nonsense, it's super slow, it doesn't suit the car, the rest of the package gets confused on the upshifts, you move your head forward like that, it's a bit criminal that they put a box of such medieval changes in a car that in many other respects is at the forefront of technology, now Aston says they have their reasons for that: a dual-clutch gearbox was too heavy and too expensive and would take too long to design in the package, but I'm not going to buy it.

They should have waited, but look, this car is full of drama, it's a work of art, it's everything an Aston Martin should be, it's flawed, but I love it, never meet your heroes, eh rubbish, you haven't slipped into a kind of dream world. This is actually an Aston Martin Signet with the la

test

generation Vantage V8 engine. The Signet you may remember was Aston Martin's first and only foray into the city car market, where they inexplicably took a Toyota IQ, changed the badges and gave it a new grille. covered it with leather and other expensive materials, maybe this one is surprising, trying to save face, basically what you have here are the front and rear subframes of the advantages bolted to the seal type center chassis, hence the wheel arches comical and on the front you have. a 4.7-litre v8 engine mounted so low and so far behind the front axle that I can't believe it doesn't protrude from the cabin, but it's not clear that this car hasn't gone through the same rigorous development process as other Aston Martins conventional. but I don't care, the world is an infinitely better place than the one that exists, let's try it, okay, the first thing you notice here is that, as you look ahead, it's a lot like driving with an advantage, apart from the fact that that there is carbon fiber literally everywhere, so you have old vantage dials, you have old vantage switches and then if you look over your left shoulder you realize that you can basically lean back and play the rear windshield, it's absolutely strange how short this car is and then we get to the noise, now the vantage s was already a great sounding car, but this sounds on another level, you are much closer to the action, there is much less isolation acoustic and also has naughtier pipes. in this car, oh, listen to that, oh, it's a bit shameless and then we get to the way this thing drives, so if you step on the accelerator, the nose just goes up and points towards the sky and then if you step on the brakes, it sinks. down and the nose is basically trying to dig into the asphalt now due to its short wheelbase due to the fact that this car is basically a square, the wheelbase is about the same length as the track width you think it It's going to be really, really nervous and it's really not, it's more stable, there's more speed than you think, it's busy, although look at this, it's bouncing and bobbing on every crack and every dip and crevice in the track.

I thought this was a smooth racetrack not according to the v8

cygnet

and then we get to the elephant in the room the gearbox yeah so it's the old automated manual sport shift and when you shift there's a huge delay and a little slow and you nod your head forward and it's not fantastic if I'm honest, but look, I'm not going to mark this card too much because I'm not here to set a lap time. I'm here to have fun and I guarantee whoever drives this car. It's my grandmother or a Formula One driver will come out of this with a huge smile on their face towards the owner, whoever you are, you might be looking around, with great respect, because what you bought here is not really a car.

It's medicine for the soul to move up to the v600, a swan song for next-gen vantage and a tribute to the monstrous 600 horsepower twin supercharged vantage of the '90s, hence the old school specs, so You get a dog-legged 7-speed manual gearbox. There's a 5.9-liter naturally aspirated V12 producing 509 horsepower and only seven coupes and seven roadsters of this were made, all with a full bonnet, a bit like the Bonds DB10, it's essentially a GT-12 without all wings and with manual gearbox. It was set up a bit like the Porsche 911r was in the GT3, except the 911r didn't cost £1.2m, yeah, here's Ollie to see if that astronomical price tag is actually justified.

£1.2m for an old version, it better be pretty special. Okay, what do we have? it got here then so far very much like an old vantage it actually feels quite agile because it has a slightly shorter wheelbase than the bigger cars we have here it's not an easy gearbox it's really not an easy gearbox this one Once it was a 7 speed manual it's on one of the planes, you can paddle back and forth reasonably easily, but the doors are so narrow that getting through the door, oh you did it right and you don't always get it right, sometimes it's a bit of a lottery.

I like it in these tighter corners, although you can put it in and it's about you have enough room to play, but it only slows down for a second because I need to turn it into sport mode. I'm going to stiffen the shock absorbers. because I'm getting a little loose at the top and I'm going to loosen the traction control right away let's go there I have no idea what gear I'm in third it says there we'll go with that so let's go it's sliding a little inside the cane, it still has a bit of sway and just wobbles slightly, you wonder, there you go, I missed that one was fromthird to fourth instead of third to second, it's actually quite feisty, isn't it.

It's a great engine and it's quite nice to turn, but it feels a little old, so you can take it for a ride down the street, but now it feels like an old-fashioned car and not really this seven gearbox. speeds requires a lot. handling and that's the story of this car really the seven speed gearbox as a manual doesn't really work and the chassis feels a bit dated every now and then it goes too far. I'm not completely sold on this one, I have to do it. Let's say I would be spending my 1.2 million elsewhere. Now the craze for cutting off the roof and windshield of your supercar and charging mega money seems to have reached Ferrari with the Monza and McLaren with the Elva, Lamborghini with the SC20 and now Aston Martin.

With this v12 sprinter yours for £765,000 now sober you want this type of car to be as useful as a teapot of chocolate but that's just missing the point isn't it? this is an a for a car it's about that special sunday trip it's about maximum entertainment and minimum practicality underneath is the 5.2 liter twin turbo v12 shared with the db11 and dbs and that's all you need to know, you really get it or not, but if you ever get the chance to drive one of these things. Make sure you grab it with both hands and both feet because there's really nothing like it other than strapping yourself to the front of the train, so we've already made a whole movie with this car, the Ferrari Monza and the McLaren Alva. in Scotland, which you can see by clicking the link somewhere above my head, but here's a little sample, wow, and now, something you probably weren't expecting, an Aston Martin with only two wheels, this is called amb01 and is linked with 100 year old bike maker, raw superior, just a couple of housekeeping here, this is a track only bike, you can't actually use it on the road and this particular one doesn't run, so we can't use it today but that's probably a good thing because my bike skills are basic at best it's £95k which is quite a bit of money considering you can get a ducati panigale v4 for under 20k dollars, but this is much more than speed.

It's art, it's a piece of sculpture that happens to be enormously powerful because it's powered by a v2 turbo engine that produces 180 horsepower and it weighs only 180 kilograms to achieve that perfect one-to-one power-to-weight ratio, so that's it. everything, that's all. -Alignment of stars from Aston Martin's brilliant q portfolio. There is only one question left to ask. Which of these would you take home? Let us know in the comments. I'll let you know when they take Victor's keys from me. Ollie, now, of course. Credits out of execution