A Manual Aston Martin Vantage Is Happening But A V12 Is Unlikely

We caught up with Aston Martin Chief Engineer Matt Becker to talk manuals, DCTs and V12s

28 Mar 2018

A Manual Aston Martin Vantage Is Happening But A V12 Is Unlikely

Given that it’s supposed to be the sportier brother to the DB11, you’d be forgiven for wondering why the new Aston Martin Vantage has a regular torque converter automatic gearbox from ZF. Particularly when the company from which its V8 engine is borrowed - Mercedes-AMG - makes a brutally efficient seven-speed dual-clutch.

It’s partly down to smoothness, Aston Martin Chief Engineer Matt Becker explained to us at the launch of the car in Portugal this month. “The auto gives you a better blend of normal use and track use; DCTs at low speeds can be a little bit shunty,” he said. Taking Andy Palmer’s learnings from his Nissan days: “with the GT-R you get a lot of complaints about dual-clutch in certain markets,” he added.

The other factor is cost - the development work for mating the 4.0-litre AMG engine with a ZF auto on a transaxle has already been done for the DB11 V8, after all. “The investment for that [a DCT] would be huge,…If we’d have gone dual clutch we wouldn’t have done a manual,” he said. Yep, that’s right, a Vantage manual is definitely happening, with a seven-speed stick shift version joining the range next year.

But what about a V12? Is there a place for that in the line-up? It’s technically possible but probably won’t happen, and it’s all to do with the weight of Aston Martin’s new 5.2-litre twin-turbo unit relative to the AMG-sourced V8. “It will fit, but there are no plans at the moment,” Becker said, adding, “It’s 100kg heavier, and you have to think about this engine [the V8] - 500bhp is not the limit of this engine. You’ve got E63s with over 600bhp.”

With that in mind, you’d have to crank up that V12 - which makes 600bhp in the DB11 - to a particularly ridiculous power figure just to make fitting it worthwhile. Becker brands the possibility of such a car “unlikely,” but didn’t rule it out entirely for the future. “We have a special vehicle operations team that do things like [Vantage] GT12s and GT8s, so it is possible that they may want to do something like that in the future, just a limited run,” he said.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Waymo wants to fight to keep driving alive and Aston is keeping the manual alive. I’m glad car guys still exist at the head of car companies!

And sadly large displacement engines are one of the things we’ll lose to keep driving alive, it’s not the end of the world but it’s still sad. At least we aren’t losing engines entirely

dope

Not having a V12 isn’t the end of the world, the amount of power and torque that can be milked out of a V8 is ludicrous-I personally would pick the V8 DB11 over the V12

how would i sleep now that ive read this comment, what did the v12 ever do to you to deserve this

I’m sad but happy at the same time for some reason.

since Aston is using the AMG engines now, give us the Zonda naturally aspirated AMG engine in the Vantage with a manual transmission. id be happy

It won’t happen

That would be the perfect successor to the 5.9 v12

But dude…. It’s a V12…. They don’t do V12s no more

Sadly, it will never happen

There is a Mercedes S73 in the making. So it is likely that the 7.3L V12 might make a return and could potentially be seen in the next Pagani model as well.

Are they undercover on Car Throttle?

They’ve actually been driving the car. The review is coming on the 11th April

Success!

Another day, another downvote bandit attack on Ndash.

Holy molly. So ive been dreaming of an AMG engine with a manual box for some time but little did i think that would be served inside an Aston Martin body. Time to sell some bodily parts