Aston Martin sales may not be the healthiest due to the current economic situation, but the British marque is pushing on with new model introductions regardless. The latest is the DBS Volante, a drop-top version of its 6.0-litre V12 flagship coupé. Set to become the most expensive Aston in the line-up - if you ignore the billionaire-only bespoke One-77 - Aston hasn't revealed prices yet for its DBS Volante, but don't expect much change from £170,000.
For that you get the same 6.0-litre V12 with 510bhp and 420lb.ft of torque as found in the fixed head version. That's enough to get the Volante to 62mph in the same 4.3 seconds as its closed sister car and onto a wind-deflector troubling 191mph maximum. If the sound of that mighty V12 isn't enough for you the Volante comes with the BeoSound DBS entertainment system, the Bang & Olufsen stereo featuring 13 speakers as standard. With all that audio equipment on board you might think there would be space for little else, but the DBS Volante is billed as a 2+2, with a pair of small seats behind the driver and passenger.
The Volante's hood is as high performance as the rest of the car with it retracting completely in 14 seconds at the touch of a button. You can drop the lightweight top while moving too, though you'll need to be light on the right pedal when doing so as it'll only retract at speeds up to 30mph. Perhaps not the finest timing, the DBS is entering a marketplace that's seriously stagnated thanks to the recession, however if the beautiful lines of this V12 drop-top aren't enough to convince a few millionaires to get spending again we're not sure what will...
Kyle Fortune - 25 Feb 2009