Unlike everyone else who's ever written about an Aston Martin, we promise to get through this DBS review without mentioning James Bond.




OK, forget it. Suffice it to say that the DBS that Bond, James Bond, drove in Quantum of Solace--while sporting the same 510-hp V12 as our car--did not have this fine new automatic transmission. The man who is licensed to kill had to shift gears manually, while we, licensed only to irritate, got to use the new Touchtronic 2 six-speed automatic.

Touchtronic 2 is a beefed-up version of the ZF tranny found in the DB9, the 470-hp V12-powered Aston one model down from the DBS in the Aston hierarchy. The final drive has been shortened from 3.15:1 to 3.46:1, which, along with the extra power and a recalibrated shift map, lowers the car's 0-to-62-mph time by half a second, from 4.8 to 4.3 seconds. The 4.3 is the same as for the manual six-speed.

The new transmission operates via big, silly push buttons on the center console, with D being farthest from the driver of our left-hand-drive car. Even the big pop-up shifter knob of the Jaguar XF, or the J-gates on all of those earlier Jags, is more ergonomic than this. Punch the D, and the car is in drive mode--powerful but not, initially, as exciting as we expected, more like a GT than a sports car.

But if you pull back on either of the paddle shifts, you instantly get more control. Pushing the console-mounted sport button for the transmission quickens shifts and throttle response. The sport button for the electronic suspension really gets you flying.


When the DBS was introduced last year, Aston boss Ulrich Bez said it would be up to us to decide whether the car was a GT or a sports car. With this new automatic, we have the answer. If you leave the electronically controlled suspension and the Touchtronic 2 transmission in their default soft settings, you have a GT car, comfortable for cruising to work and home again without being beaten up but with plenty of power from the V12 engine when you want it. If you move both buttons to their sport settings, va-va-va-voom, you have a sports car.

On the potholed streets of Hollywood, we had it all on soft and drove along quite comfortably. Once we rose above the city and turned onto winding Mulholland Drive, we hit both buttons. You can feel the throttle increase as soon as you do this, like a small shot of nitrous oxide. The suspension tightens, and suddenly, you're taking corners with gleeful abandon, dodging the black plastic trash cans of the rich and famous. Once through the Hollywood Hills and back to civilized suburbia, we hit the buttons and returned to comfortable cruising. If not for the svelte, sculptural body in which we rode, no one would have suspected that we were licensed to do anything but drive.


SPECS
ON SALE: Now

BASE PRICE: $273,000

DRIVETRAIN: 5.9-liter, 510-hp, 420-lb-ft V12; RWD, six-speed automatic

CURB WEIGHT: 3,737 lb

0-62 MPH: 4.3 sec (mfr)

FUEL ECONOMY: N/A