Supercar.Superbuild.S01E02.Bentley.Continental.GT.V8.S
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00:00It's synonymous with sophisticated elegance, high performance and secret agents.
00:17For over a hundred years Aston Martin has made distinguished sports cars, but now this
00:23tiny British brand stands alone.
00:26We are a David versus a Goliath.
00:28Battling multinational conglomerates in an ever-changing world.
00:31Aston Martin has no margin for error.
00:33To survive they need a new machine.
00:36We are it.
00:37There is no helper or big brother.
00:39A small but dedicated team looks to the past, only to find salvation in an old American
00:46hot rodder's trick.
00:47I was absolutely adamant, we're going to make this do 200 miles an hour.
00:53A uniquely English machine called the V12 Vantage S.
00:58In 2007 Aston Martin stands as one of the top European sports car manufacturers in the
01:24world.
01:30Winning both on the racetrack and also on the showroom floor.
01:35We were really into our stride and producing over 7,000 cars and we established the DB9
01:41as the new icon, the super cool GT.
01:45We got the V8 Vantage in production and we established what we call the new era.
01:50Almost without warning the world economy collapses.
01:58Overnight Aston Martin loses its empire.
02:01Some challenges in the market for sure from 2008 onwards, a global recession.
02:07It's a global recession that sends car makers around the world into a tailspin.
02:11For Aston Martin it's now do or die.
02:15Aston Martin is one of the very few independent, really small car makers.
02:21Most supercar manufacturers are owned by worldwide conglomerates, but Aston Martin has no corporate
02:28safety net.
02:31The company's next move could be its last.
02:36No matter what's going on in the company, in the economy, in whatever, these guys got
02:39to be thinking, I want to build a sports car, I want to build a sports car, and well, they
02:43did.
02:44For the first time in over 20 years, its success or failure rests solely in British hands.
02:50They have to fight for their own little niche.
02:54They don't have economies of scale which other manufacturers have, so they have to pay more
02:58for every single part that they develop for their cars.
03:03So what Aston has done is sort of repurpose the same architecture and their same engines
03:08to make new things.
03:12Creative designer Marek Reikman itches to push the brand forward.
03:16We've always had a policy of thinking about what could we do next with the assets that
03:20we have around us.
03:22What would be exciting?
03:26With limited money to build a new machine from the ground up, Reikman has to do a lot
03:33with a little.
03:34The idea was, well, what if we put the V12 engine into the Vantage?
03:38How could we make that work?
03:41Squeezing the brand's biggest engine into one of its smallest and oldest chassis is
03:46a daring proposition.
03:50Yet the notion ignites a passion for speed.
03:55That genesis absolutely of Ian coming along and saying, hey, you know, we have this idea,
04:00we talked together, said, this will be an amazing car to do.
04:05The engineering team quickly sets its sights on creating a bold goal.
04:13When we're laying down the targets for the V12 Vantage S, I was absolutely adamant to
04:18the guys, we're going to make this do 200 miles an hour.
04:24An outrageous top speed isn't the only objective.
04:29We wanted to get below the magic four seconds of 0-60.
04:36So it really came out of a small group of guys' free thinking, but once we got hold
04:40of the concept, we thought, yeah, this is a serious project and a serious car.
04:44With the performance targets set, the design team faces a unique challenge.
04:50How to take an existing and universally applauded supercar and fit a substantially larger engine
04:55inside it?
04:56We had a VMAX target.
04:59All those were defined.
05:01We create the sketch, and that sketch has to look like an Aston Martin.
05:06Making an Aston Martin look like an Aston Martin is no easy task.
05:10Your first reaction has to be, it's beautiful.
05:17It takes time to find the right balance of beautiful.
05:20If I was to describe the thing that we had to win, it was about making sure the proportion
05:26was absolutely perfect.
05:28So the fight was for perfection.
05:32It's a distinctly British form of perfection that starts in a very old-world way.
05:39All Aston Martins start with a sketch.
05:40In my mind, that immediately starts to give you a proportion.
05:44Within that proportion, you have to fit the person.
05:46So you can then start to realize where the front wheel is, where the rear wheel is, where
05:51the occupant will sit, and you can start to sketch.
05:54You can start to have an idea of the form, the language of the car.
05:58That language is the key to Aston's rebirth.
06:02And it's all due to a time-honored process.
06:04That sketch then becomes a three-dimensional scale model.
06:13Designers design a lot of stuff on computers, but you can't touch what's on the computer
06:16screen.
06:17But you can touch what's in clay.
06:22First, they create an eighth-scale model.
06:28It's a fast way to bring the language of the car to life.
06:31At that point, we can then start to scan that three-dimensional form.
06:34The CAD doesn't understand whether this is a scale model or not, because we can convert
06:39the scale to full size, so we can turn a 10-millimeter square into a 100-millimeter square.
06:44So immediately then, we have a surface.
06:48Once the surface becomes digital, the team can look for the most minute imperfections.
06:53Our role is to get the scan data and the nuances that are done physically by the clay modeler.
06:58Our job is to refine those.
07:00Then we go back to the physical world to make sure what we've done is correct.
07:17Designers work tirelessly to perfect the shape in the real world, hand-crafting each
07:28sensuous curve in clay on a life-size model.
07:34I'm not a designer, but it's all about their proportions.
07:46It's all about the way that car sits with a big, long hood and just the elegant, simple
07:51lines that go across it.
07:52They're just timeless.
07:57When you build something in clay, you get this full-size model, and you get the whole
08:01feeling of how the car looks and what it's going to express that you just don't get if
08:05you design the car solely on a computer screen.
08:09We're looking for the most beautiful proportion all the time.
08:13We use golden section naturally as designers to create form, to create shape.
08:19The golden section, or golden ratio, is a mathematical formula used to describe beauty.
08:26It was first discovered by the ancient Greeks over 2,500 years ago.
08:31It's a theorem that tries to find logic in beauty.
08:35Yet even today, it still affects the most exotic and modern supercars in the world.
08:42It's a rule and a principle, a mathematical rule, comes from nature.
08:48The Nautilus shell, for instance, everything within the Nautilus shell fits perfectly within
08:52that golden section, the golden triangle, as it were.
08:55The golden rule might come from the old world, but the design team's use is uniquely contemporary
09:01and uniquely British.
09:03The Brits are known for understated design.
09:06They bring cues from the 60s and 70s, and they brought that all the way into today.
09:12It's not an easy thing to define, necessarily, but it's an elegant, classy design.
09:17It's not vulgar in any way.
09:19There's no huge affectations.
09:20Aston Martin means these sporty, grand touring cars, cars that you want to drive across continental
09:26Europe in 10 minutes with your foot on the floor.
09:32They're incredibly powerful, but they're also incredibly comfortable and beautiful.
09:35It's a car to be seen in.
09:39That's the understated gentleman's for you.
09:44Marik and his team blend that open appeal with a modern style.
09:48That becomes the battle to make sure we get the best looking car that is going to be timeless
09:52design, a future classic.
09:56So it's really about making sure everyone understands the direction and the goal.
10:03That goal is a contemporary reinterpretation of an old American hot rodder's trick.
10:08Take the biggest, heaviest, and most powerful engine and drop it into the lightest chassis.
10:14A 565 horsepower engine called the AM28.
10:21That's just the ancient hot rodder's recipe for making an awesome sports car.
10:26Everybody loves a good stick the biggest motor in the smallest car you got.
10:29And sometimes it can be fun, sometimes it can be a little bit too much.
10:33In the case of the Aston, it's probably both.
10:36Astronomers predict that the four extra cylinders will propel the machine to a 329 kilometer
10:42an hour top speed.
10:45There's only one problem.
10:49The engine doesn't actually fit.
10:53In an ever changing automotive landscape, Aston Martin looks to turn heads with a new
10:59hot rod inspired supercar.
11:00Since Aston Martin doesn't have a big car maker to support them, they have to do everything
11:05on their own.
11:06It takes so much money to develop a new car and if you don't sell four trillion of them,
11:11you can't recoup that development cost.
11:13They can't afford to make any big mistakes because that could cost the company everything.
11:16If Aston misses on anything, I think we're going to have to say goodbye to them.
11:22So how does an independent car maker expect to compete with some of the largest car companies
11:27in the world?
11:29The answer lies in the quiet green hills of Warwickshire, England.
11:35Welcome to Gaydon, the beating heart of Aston Martin since 2003.
11:44It's one of the most technologically advanced automotive factories in the world.
11:48It's a facility where people are manufacturing these beautiful sports cars with great passion.
11:57Fifty four acres of space age technology paired with British refinement.
12:02It's quiet, it's clean, it's very, very high tech.
12:10Every phase from design to production takes place on a single campus.
12:17It's here that engineers and designers struggle to solve the critical problems facing the
12:23project.
12:24The front end of the car was designed around a V8 engine.
12:28So the first challenge is actually getting the large engine to fit in the space.
12:36Engineers digitally comb over every single millimetre of the engine bay to find a solution.
12:41The big challenges were the packaging of an engine which had four more cylinders than
12:45the previous engine.
12:47Just to give you an example of that, that's about that much longer within the same wheelbase.
12:54When engineers first digitally drop the V12 engine into the V8 chassis, they immediately
13:00have a problem.
13:01You can start to see some of the pinch points here and just here on the front of the engine
13:08as the bonnet dives over, we're in a tight pinch point here.
13:14A pinch point is where two pieces don't fit correctly.
13:18Getting the engine to fit comes down to just 12.5 millimetres.
13:23A little less than the height of two iPhones stacked on top of each other.
13:27Usually we'd look for 25 millimetres but in some cases we've halved that.
13:37In the end, 12.5 millimetres are the key to bringing a new machine to life.
13:45The pressure on Aston must be enormous because they have such limited resources and they
13:49have to keep coming out with different things.
13:53Any failure could mean the end of the marque's illustrious legacy.
14:01One of the challenges that we believe we always take on here is doing the impossible.
14:06With their reputation hanging in the balance and perhaps their solvency, the Aston Martin
14:11design team boldly surges forward.
14:13As a small independent car company, they're a lot more agile.
14:17They can do fun things, they can do crazy things like that car.
14:22They wouldn't get through a regular car company's processes.
14:26That's something that we would say, well, of course we can do it.
14:29We don't have to follow this rule, we don't have to think in this way.
14:33We can make it work.
14:35It's a unique form of bravado from a company that's no longer willing to keep a stiff upper
14:41lip.
14:42But if they built some sort of car that wasn't really an Aston Martin and they spent a lot
14:46of money on it and it didn't sell, that could kill the company.
14:49This small independent is about to go toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful companies in
14:54the world.
14:55But only if it can learn to control something that you can't actually see.
15:01In the world of extreme supercars, powerful engines always get the glory.
15:08But it's the air surrounding them that provides the greatness.
15:12Literally, as you shoehorn your foot into a very tight shoe, that's what we try to do
15:17with the V12 Vantage S engine.
15:20Shoehorning the larger V12 into the chassis is just the first step.
15:25The real key is to manage the airflow around and inside the machine itself.
15:29And we've got a lot to come through the engine, what we're going to do with all that air that's
15:33going into the front of the car.
15:38Controlling the air creates three distinct challenges.
15:42First, the machine needs to be tuned so that it's stable at high speed.
15:46At 200 miles an hour, an airplane can take off.
15:50At 200 miles an hour, a car can take off too.
15:52So you want to make sure that the aero package is right so that the car stays on the road.
15:56But the car also needs to cut through the air easily.
15:59That requires creating the least amount of drag possible.
16:03Drag is a type of air resistance.
16:05Drag, effectively, is the force you've got to hammer.
16:08How hard have you got to work to push the air out of the way?
16:11Tuning the machine to be stable and reducing the drag
16:14proved to be easy compared to cooling the machine.
16:22We've got a more powerful engine and it fills the engine bay a lot more.
16:26As soon as we found out we were going to get put up a V12 in this car,
16:28the first thing for me was, you know, what are we going to do with all that heat?
16:33The team of aerodynamicists use a sophisticated three-dimensional model
16:38made up of over 60 million cells to find the best way to move the air.
16:43The first step is to map what you can't see.
16:46Red is good. That means there's lots of energy left in the air.
16:50So this is us before we get to the car.
16:52And as the car passes through the air, that energy is transformed into heat rejection.
17:03Air particles pass through the car in just 50 milliseconds.
17:11In that 50 milliseconds worth of time, that air has to cool the brakes.
17:19It has to travel round the car without causing too much drag.
17:27And it also has to make sure that the car is absolutely planted at speed.
17:32The air loses half its energy before it even hits the engine.
17:39Within the space of about 100 millimetres, or the length of your forearm,
17:44the air is slowed down from 200 miles an hour down to 100 miles per hour.
17:48When the machine is moving, the air slows down quickly.
17:54But when the machine has stopped, getting the hot air out is even trickier.
17:59To do that, they tune the louvres on the hood.
18:02Aerodynamics is kind of seen as being high speed,
18:05but it actually delivers more at low speed.
18:13What we've got here is a prototype bonnet.
18:16We've got this bonnet here, which is going to put these extra louvres in,
18:18which we derived from motorsports experience.
18:21These parts actually in here, they can be changed.
18:23If I flip it over, you can see each one of them is tunable.
18:26So we tuned these to get the maximum airflow through them.
18:33Whilst it's running at high speed, so it draws more air out,
18:36that gives you kind of a better head start.
18:38If you keep the engine cool in the first place,
18:39you haven't got such a mountain to climb when you actually stop.
18:43But also when the car stops, it allows all that heat
18:45that would build up inside the engine bay to come out.
18:48At speed, managing the airflow is critical and complicated.
18:54Because air travels through components at pressures a thousand times greater
18:58than the capacity of the human lung,
19:02how the team channels it throughout the vehicle makes all the difference.
19:06We've got to kind of separate that out between how much goes into the engine
19:08to give us the extra power to reach the top speed,
19:10how much we need to obviously cool the engine.
19:12You're going to heat the brakes up to 700 degrees.
19:14We've got to have airflow pumping into those wheel arches to cool those back down.
19:18So it's a finite balance of trying to achieve all those things
19:21with all the air around the car.
19:24From an engineering standpoint, the V12 Vantage S is an engine-heavy dragster,
19:33just like the 1950s American hot rods that inspired it.
19:37The V12 Vantage is a real engineer's car.
19:39There's a bit of hot rod in there because it's the big engine in the smaller car.
19:47One of the keys to a great hot rod is how it sounds.
19:53Inside a hidden garage, off-limits to the public,
20:01engineers use a high-tech camera system with 32 microphones
20:05to visually chart the engine's audio signals.
20:09This lets the team precisely tune which sounds occupants hear
20:14and which they don't.
20:16The camera records data at 96,000 times per second.
20:20They then use a colour map to identify the noise characteristics,
20:24with purple being the loudest sound.
20:27Finally, they combine the camera imagery with the audio data
20:31to pinpoint exactly where the sounds originate,
20:34sounds which help intensify Aston's unique exhaust note.
20:42Absolutely beautiful noise that you only get from a 12-cylinder engine.
20:45They don't sound like anything else.
20:50Aston Martin
20:54The problem is, Aston Martin doesn't make hot rods.
20:58They make exquisite supercars, laced with sophistication.
21:04Today's global buyers expect more than just a big engine.
21:07Anybody can make a fast car these days.
21:09What Aston really needs to do is appeal to the emotional side.
21:14There's an understated elegance about an Aston Martin.
21:17It's maybe more about wearing the label on the inside than the label on the outside.
21:21It is the gentleman's supercar.
21:22First of all, they look the part, they sound the part.
21:25They're a little bit more restrained,
21:26but they are no less serious when it comes to performance.
21:33So, how do you transform a hot rod into an Aston Martin?
21:37There were some really long nights on that,
21:39saying, how do we make this work?
21:41How do we get that mix of refinement with a little bit of rawness into there?
21:48A fateful discussion over a cup of coffee
21:51has led Aston Martin to put their largest engine into their smallest chassis.
21:57The question now is, how do they transform this modern hot rod
22:01into a refined luxury vehicle?
22:08It's always about pushing the technology,
22:11pushing the innovation of the material.
22:13High-tech and handmade are two staples at the Gaydon factory,
22:17where over 200 man-hours go into the assembly of just one Vantage.
22:25The process begins in the trim department.
22:27This is the Gaydon trim shop.
22:29This is where all the leather panels are all stitched together.
22:33Each Vantage interior utilises six full hides of leather.
22:38These are Alcantara panels.
22:40These are Alcantara panels.
22:42These have just come from the sewing area.
22:44The parts are now being laid out into the spray booths
22:47and the adhesive is now being applied.
22:51Once the glue is sprayed,
22:52the leather workers have just four minutes to apply it to the plastic.
22:57Now the adhesive is no longer wet, it's just tacky.
23:00Once you put the two parts together, it forms a permanent bond.
23:04There are 50 trimmers and they'll make over 300 parts a day.
23:09It takes roughly 50 hours to make all the interior trim pieces for just one Vantage.
23:18And the most important tool has a name that harkens back to Stonehenge.
23:22There is one major tool, that tool is called a bone
23:25and that is the one that pretty much does it all.
23:27The leather parts might be made very traditionally,
23:32but if you order a bespoke Vantage, the stitching is absolutely high-tech.
23:37This is the quilting operations area.
23:39This is where our bespoke quilting is produced.
23:42The quilting machine looks fast.
23:44It had better be, there's more than one million stitches in a Vantage.
23:50While old-world artisans spend two days crafting the interior,
23:56it takes just half as long to build the space frame.
24:01Each panel, or casting, arrives at the factory having already been superformed,
24:05a process where metal is heated to extreme temperatures
24:08before being stamped into a final shape.
24:15Robots apply oxy-adhesive.
24:18The adhesive is both more accurate and stronger than a traditional weld.
24:36The entire space frame is cured in an oven at 185°C for over 30 minutes.
24:45A slow burn for a fast machine.
24:48Now the chassis is ready to receive its bodywork.
24:53Then they fit the doors.
24:56The doors are made of metal,
24:58and the bodywork is made of glass.
25:01Then they fit the doors,
25:06front quarter panels,
25:11and bonnet.
25:19Each body is inspected by hand,
25:22then it's time for a splash of English colour.
25:31We're now at the start of the Aston Martin paint process.
25:34As you can see, we've got the car delivered into paint.
25:37Quite a different car as to what you're going to see at the end of the process.
25:41Only at Aston Martin, their colourful demeanour is just as special as the machine itself.
25:46The full paint process takes on average 50 hours per car.
25:49Unlike high-volume factories where cars are painted in batches of the same colours,
25:55at Gaydon, each vehicle is painted individually.
25:58It's not efficient, but it is effective,
26:00even though they actually use very little paint.
26:03120 microns of paint will be added to the car,
26:06of which we will remove 30 microns in our polish process to make it a mirror glass finish.
26:11So in theory, you have got something the thickness of that on the car finished gloss level.
26:18That shine starts with a single coat of primer.
26:24Now it's ready for the paint to dry.
26:27Now it's ready for the prep line.
26:32The idea of the prep line is we look for any imperfection before base coat is applied.
26:39We have a very big ethos with prep work.
26:44Once the car is primed and prepped, it's ready for paint.
26:49This car will have base coat applied in the booth there.
26:52It will then be dried for 20 minutes, moved into a flash-off oven,
26:56and then we apply the clear coat by hand.
27:01Each Vantage then receives two layers of paint and two layers of clear coat,
27:06some done by robots, some done by hand.
27:09The paint shop has a degree of automation.
27:11We've got some robots, some robots.
27:14Some done by hand.
27:15The paint shop has a degree of automation.
27:17We've got some robots in there for spraying.
27:19Lots of hand finishing to get the depth of paint finish onto the car.
27:26The machine is ready to be polished.
27:29Very different to high volume, run-of-the-mill factories.
27:32You will not get this process.
27:35Once painted, it's time to put the machine together
27:44in the final assembly hall,
27:47where it takes 42 stations to build a Vantage.
27:51We're currently on the first part of the assembly line, trim one.
27:58Throughout the whole process,
28:01throughout the rest of this line,
28:03we're fitting some of the key parts that your average driver
28:06doesn't really think about on a day-to-day basis.
28:16It's a very classic way to build a supercar.
28:22And the only way to build an Aston Martin.
28:25Superficially, it can look very similar to a conventional Vantage.
28:29To a conventional car production process.
28:33It's still very much a craft-based production system.
28:38Rear deck lids are pre-assembled and then installed.
28:44Finally, the car is ready for its massive handcrafted instrument panel.
28:52The technicians will use this big device here, this assister.
28:55It's a very heavy part, it's the IP.
28:57Then pick it up and mount it to the vehicle.
29:05While the majority of the work on the line is done by hand,
29:10the newest addition to Gaydon is completely automated.
29:14The robot places adhesive on the edge of the windscreen
29:17and is far more precise than a human.
29:19It's the first part of automated equipment that we have on this line
29:22and we've done it solely to help us improve quality.
29:27Quality that meets performance on an adjoining sub-assembly line.
29:31Where the powertrain begins to come to life with the naturally aspirated V12 engine.
29:38We're now in the powertrain sub-assembly area.
29:46Here you can see one of the V12 engines.
29:52And what we do is we take the engine in the pallet
29:58we load it up like this and then we carry it over to the first part of the assembly process.
30:09We assemble the engine to the torque tube
30:12and we then have the gearbox at the back of the vehicle.
30:22They continue to build up the drivetrain by bolting on the transmission
30:27followed by the catalytic converters,
30:45then the heat shield,
30:54rear disc brakes and suspension.
30:58So we fix what we call the front corner units.
31:04So that's the assembly of the brake disc, the brake parts and the suspension parts
31:09before we then marry it up to the car.
31:16The front suspension is built as a separate sub-assembly
31:19where they bolt on the 398mm carbon ceramic disc brakes.
31:28Once it's completed, it's joined to the rest of the drivetrain.
31:49We need to fit the radiator on the front of the engine unit.
31:52By having the engine, torque tube and gearbox arrangement
31:55we can get the optimum weight distribution in the car
31:57which is so important for the handling of the vehicle.
32:0485% of the weight distribution sits between the wheels
32:11helping agility on a track.
32:17The 7-speed transmission launches the machine from 0 to 100 km an hour
32:23in under 4 seconds.
32:30Now it will take the team at Gaden 40 minutes
32:32to install the single most important piece of the Vantage.
32:43It's taken over 100 man-hours for the fastest production-based Aston Martin ever
32:51to get to the single most important station on the line.
32:54The bit that I like the best is what we call the marriage station
32:58where we take the whole of the driveline of the car
33:02and we marry that up into the body structure of the car.
33:22Even though the machine is now married, it's not quite ready for a honeymoon.
33:28The Vantage still needs some key bits of kit
33:35like exhaust pipes
33:44the front bumper
33:52and the tail lights.
33:55There is no line that intersects between the lamp and the fender
33:58it's embedded like a jewel set in a ring.
34:02Jewelry that takes a surprisingly long time to install.
34:08It takes 15 minutes to set just one headlight.
34:16Then they place the tail lights.
34:22Clearly these cars are going to need some wheels.
34:27And after that we build up the interior trim of the vehicle.
34:43The Vantage is ready to move to the very last line.
34:47Trim three is around fitting all the parts of the car
34:49that you touch and you feel when you're inside the car.
35:12Front seats come to the line fully assembled from the trim shop.
35:20Then the hand-sewn steering wheel.
35:39Doors are brought to the line
35:43and carefully installed.
35:50Once we've fitted the doors,
35:52the car will complete the last couple of stations on the assembly process.
36:04As the car nears the end of the line, there's one more key step.
36:09The famed Aston Martin wing.
36:12So precious that they keep it locked up until it's ready to be installed.
36:16This is the only badge or wing left in the automotive industry made by a jeweler.
36:22So we know this is very special.
36:47Before a completed Aston Martin can leave the factory,
36:50it must first take a few laps around the test track.
37:09This is part of the off-tracks facility.
37:12This is our new rolling road.
37:14It's going to get up to about 70 or 80 miles an hour.
37:17Off-tracks is where each vehicle is tested
37:20to meet quality control standards like wind noise and waterproofing.
37:38By doing these test processes in a controlled environment,
37:41we can make sure we do it the same every time.
37:45Then building advantage literally hits a bump in the road.
37:51In the hydropulse area, they simulate road inputs using hydraulic actuators
37:55to find squeaks and rattles.
38:04The very last test is a final inspection.
38:08We spend about 20 hours specifically checking over the car as it's produced
38:13and at the very end of line to make sure it's absolutely perfect
38:16before we ship it on to a customer.
38:21It's taken almost 10 days of assembly to complete the V12 Vantage S.
38:28The fastest production-based Aston Martin ever built.
38:33And a bold gambit by one of the only remaining independent car makers in the world.
38:39In a hyper-competitive automotive world,
38:41Aston Martin must do a lot with a little in order to stay relevant.
38:50Building a car on your own is expensive.
38:52If they build the wrong car that doesn't sell,
38:54they're a company that's going to be in a lot of trouble.
38:59Now, after months of sketches, sculpting and intricate assembly,
39:04the risky idea is finally ready to enter the real world.
39:30The first thing you do when you get into Aston Martin
39:32is go, how do I start it?
39:35You have this key that is made out of crystal.
39:41And you put it in a slot in the dash,
39:42and you press it in, hold it, and then the engine starts.
39:49Aston calls it the emotional control unit.
39:51You could look at it as gimmicky,
39:52but when it's that beautiful, it doesn't matter.
39:54It's a little bit of theater, but my God,
39:56if you're going to do theater,
39:57you might as well do it on a car that looks like that.
39:59If you're going to do theater,
40:00you might as well do it on a car that looks like that.
40:01You fire the car up, and it just goes...
40:04And it just wakes up like it's been in some deep slumber,
40:06and it's really pissed off that you just woke it up.
40:09And then you go out driving it, and more of that happens.
40:12It's a decidedly angry form of British sophistication.
40:16Astons are British Camaros.
40:18They're loud, they're brash, they're rough.
40:22What Aston's done brilliantly over the years
40:24is taking a small number of ingredients
40:26and making a lot of different dishes with them.
40:28This V12, for example, dates back to the year of the flood.
40:31It's really old.
40:34What makes the AM28 so unique isn't new technology,
40:38but rather old technology at its best.
40:44Thank God it's not a turbo.
40:45Downsizing an engine and putting turbos on it
40:47makes easy power, but I call it cheating.
40:49It's just too easy.
40:54There is a charm and a personality
40:56that normally aspirated engines have.
41:01And that's something we're missing out on.
41:03To have a naturally aspirated engine these days
41:05is actually becoming kind of rare.
41:07It's old technology,
41:08but there's something kind of special about it.
41:12It's an angry, angry car,
41:13and it's really visceral and really powerful.
41:19It really speaks to you in that way.
41:20Every time Aston comes out with a new version of this engine,
41:23you think, oh, they're beating this dead horse.
41:25Except the horse ain't dead.
41:27This horse is faster than the previous one.
41:30It sounds better.
41:32It's more powerful.
41:35It responds better.
41:36The V12 Vantage S is the most mainstream Aston
41:39to ever crack the 330-kilometer-an-hour barrier.
41:43We sort of dialed a few things up,
41:44maybe from 10 to 11 in some cases,
41:47and we put more power and performance into the car.
41:50205 miles an hour is incredible.
41:52It's a completely different world.
41:54This is the highest performance version
41:56of a high-performance version
41:57of a high-performance version of the Vantage.
42:00Every time you step up the ladder,
42:01you get a little bit more jewelry.
42:03It's spoilers and stuff like that.
42:04It's an extreme way of building a car,
42:06and that's not for everybody.
42:07You throw fuel economy out the window,
42:09you throw everything that most people really care about
42:11on a daily basis,
42:12you throw that out the window,
42:13and you build an extreme car
42:15that's loud and powerful and raucous and fast.
42:19An extreme car with extreme performance.
42:28If you take one drive in one of these cars,
42:30you realize that the people who are working
42:32behind the scenes at Aston are clearly sports car guys.
42:34Sports car guys who continue to battle
42:37for their very survival
42:38by doing the only thing they know how to do,
42:40build beautifully exotic supercars.
42:44At the end of the day, no matter what I drive,
42:46at whatever speed, on whatever track,
42:48I always come away from the Aston thinking,
42:51God, that's more fun than anything else.
42:55I pinch myself every single day still,
42:57after almost nine years,
42:59that this is not a job, it's a vocation,
43:02it's something which is very hard to describe the feeling.
43:11It's the sensation of what you're actually achieving
43:14in terms of the heritage, the future,
43:17of the brand of Aston Martin.
43:25They are the most communicative sports cars
43:27on the market now,
43:28and they show no signs of moving anywhere away from that.
43:31If that means there's no Aston in 20 years,
43:33hey, at least we had some of the best cars now.