2024 Aston Martin DB12 Volante Review: A ‘Super Tourer’ That’s More Super Than Tourer

Aston has billed the DB12 as a “super tourer,” that is a grand tourer that also doubles as a bona fide supercar. This dedication to simultaneous comfort and athleticism in one vehicle is admirable when you’re selling to people who can usually only afford one car—hence, why we have humble hot hatchbacks—but I struggle with it at this end of the tax bracket. The 2024 Aston Martin DB12 Volante starts at $269,000.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Most people shopping in the DB12’s end of the market aren’t looking for one as their only car. So, why does it have to be versatile? Why can’t it be really, really good at one thing and one thing only?

The Basics

Here’s the part of the Aston review in which I address the way it looks and try to come up with something new and different to say that doesn’t boil down to “She really is beautiful, innit?” As good as the DB12 looks in pictures, it’s somehow even better in the metal. It definitely garners attention and unlike, say, a Lamborghini with which the reception may not always be positive, public reactions to the Aston are almost always one of awe and reverence. I can’t claim to be too skilled at reading people, but the collective looks from passersby can be summed up as “I didn’t know cars could look that good.”

In terms of actual sheet metal, the DB12 isn’t drastically different from the DB11 it replaces. Officially, it’s billed as a new model but, in reality, it’s more of a heavy facelift. You’d be hard-pressed to find complaints of “new gorgeous Aston looks too much like the old gorgeous Aston,” though.

Pop open one of the DB12’s ever-so-slightly upward-swinging doors, and you’ll be met with an interior that’s quite a step up from what you got in the DB11. First observation: this thing smelled like a Porsche. Not necessarily a bad thing, Porsches smell like Quality. Visually, interfaces are clean and well laid out.

There are lots of buttons and scroll wheels that make interacting with this car’s systems a breeze, materials feel expensive, and I’m a sucker for this particular example’s very Slytherin-coded combo of green leather and dark open-pore wood. The sun visors are wrapped in stitched leather and the joints are shiny. I miss the cool Bowers speaker grilles that you get in the newer Vantage and Vanquish, although I’d be shocked if those aren’t coming to the DB12 eventually.

This being the convertible Volante, the trunk is tiny and the top refused to open when there was a carry-on in there. Given that people usually have luggage when going on road trips, this is the first mark against the DB12 as a grand tourer. (More are coming, unforch.)

Another annoying thing precluding this from proper GT-dom are the screens that now run proper software, yes, but the hardware cannot seem to dim to a comfortable level at night. They are distractingly, retina-searingly bright and the issue ultimately was not resolved even after I brought it up with Aston. Also, you know how Apple CarPlay temporarily quiets down music whenever Google Maps doles out audio instructions? This DB12 had an infuriating bug where whenever Maps would cut in to tell you where to go, Spotify would pause completely and did not resume until I manually tapped the play button again.

What’s more, build quality isn’t nearly as great as what you’d get from a bigger manufacturer like BMW or Lexus. The glossy black control center in the middle may look nice but it becomes creak city when you press on it even lightly; and there was an annoying squeak coming from where the passenger door meets the dash.

Driving the Aston Martin DB12 Volante

This being the statelier, grander entry in Aston’s current sports car lineup, the DB12 drives immediately quieter and smoother than the Vantage. However, in the context of other high-dollar grand tourers, it’s only OK as an actual grand tourer. It’s louder and rougher than I expected it to be and, in my mind, not really a substitute for a Bentley Continental GT (or even a Lexus LC which remains, dollar-for-dollar, the greatest GT car on sale today). Those two are more refined than this, which does align with Aston’s new “super-tourer” angle on this car, to be fair.

The ride isn’t jiggly enough to be considered jarring but it isn’t serene either. For true GT duty, it’s gotta ride better and quieter than this. The seats, too, seem to have been sculpted with sportiness in mind—they aren’t uncomfortable, but they definitely could be more sumptuous. There’s wind noise, the V8 refuses to not make itself known even during casual cruising, and, as mentioned, the interior of this particular example liked to squeak a bit going over bumps.

A 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 borrowed from Mercedes makes 671 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, letting the DB12 Volante hit 60 mph in 3.6 seconds and have a top speed of 202 mph. It’s a powerful, gravelly-sounding engine while the transmission, an eight-speed automatic from ZF, shifts deliberately slowly with the paddles in GT mode but quickens up nicely in Sport and Sport+.

The whole car, in fact, wakes up in those modes. That V8 becomes downright raucous, with pops on the overrun and thrown down a twisty road, the “super” part of this “super tourer” reveals itself in full. The steering is a highlight. It feels precise and light and quick and responsive and pleasurable like a bona fide sports car rack should. It’s nice and hefty on the highway, of course, but around town, the DB12 steers perfectly lightly. In my view, the DB12 is better at the super part of its ethos than the tourer part and driven hard, I find myself thinking simply, “What a nice thing this is.”

Brakes—carbon in this example—worked well as brakes and the pedal feels confidently athletic. Although the persistently loud squeal they made which I’m told is known and expected behavior was annoying enough for me to recommend you stay away from them as an option if you plan on driving this car with or around distinguished company. It’s a very supercar trait that indeed hampers its credentials as a supposedly relaxing and sophisticated grand tourer.

Legislative Theater

The Aston Martin DB12’s quirks don’t stop there because bar none the most aggravating thing that came with this particular vehicle was a deeply annoying chime that went off any time I went even a little over the speed limit. You can turn it off, but it’s buried in touchscreen menus and, like auto start-stop in most cars that have that, it’s on by default every time you restart the vehicle. The tech is there so that the DB12 complies with a new European law mandating Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) tech in every new car sold.

To Aston’s credit, it is rolling out software updates that will see this kept off in North American market cars and this press loan even came with a short video made by Aston’s PR folks teaching me step-by-step how to turn the tech off.

I’d like to take the opportunity to speak not at Aston but European lawmakers: every time I heard this chime, all it did was make me want to speed even more out of sheer spite. Perhaps this makes me the asshole here, sure, but I’d be willing to bet that a fair chunk of the European driving public has the same psychological reaction. Safe drivers don’t need a chime to remind them to not speed. And truly unsafe drivers aren’t going to let a chime stop them from being unsafe drivers.

This is pure legislative theater. It’s a TSA agent making you throw out a perfectly good sandwich or, y’know, your homemade friendship bracelet so they can go home at the end of the day feeling like they accomplished something. And if that’s what you need to do to sleep soundly at night, more power to you, but let’s not pretend it’s accomplishing anything more than that.

The Verdict

Even ignoring some annoying beeps and bongs, the DB12 quite isn’t the do-all be-all Aston Martin that Aston Martin wants it to be. It leans too harsh and sporty to be a class-leading GT car, which pays off when you have a nice piece of road to yourself but how often does that actually happen? And even when it does happen, I have a feeling most DB12 owners already have a Vantage that’s much better equipped for the task. Or a 911 GT3. Or a Caterham.

If you want an Aston that’s equally as good on a backroad as it is at crossing continents, you’re gonna need to check the couch cushions for a bit more coin and get a Vanquish.

Given the job of driving cross-country, the competing Bentley would be a much better tool than the DB12. Hell, so would a Lexus. And while it’s made great strides in the interior and tech department, small-but-infuriating quirks like the eye-searing nighttime screens and nonsensical CarPlay bugs make it a case of “wait-and-see” for those looking at it as a serious buying and daily driving proposition.

The 2024 Aston Martin DB12 Volante is one of those cars that attempts to be good at multiple things—it mostly succeeds but at the expense of not being the best at any of those things. The sole exception to this, of course, lies in the way it looks.

Don’t get me wrong, the DB12 is an objectively fabulous luxury product. It’s beautiful, it’s fast, and it’s a marker of how far this particular brand has come when it comes to the pesky “driving excellence” department. But look a little closer and given the context in which it exists, I can’t help but wish it was better at simply being a grand tourer.

Got a tip or question for the author about the DB12 Volante? You can reach him here: chris.tsui@thedrive.com