Aston Martin DB12

FIRST DRIVE British coupé lives up to Aston's billing as a 'super-tourer'

- Steve Sutcliffe

ASTON Martin claims the DB12 is "the world's first super-tourer", whatever that might mean. Either way, the British brand also claims that 80 percent of the DB12 is new, and that this 202mph, £185,000, 671bhp coupé represents a brand-new era for the company.

It's an era that's being crafted by Aston's boss, Lawrence Stroll, with a newly restructured team beneath him, and a fresh chunk of investment behind them that will (hopefully) allow Britain's most famous sports car company to flourish once again, having been in the wilderness recently.

So can Aston and its new DB12 deliver on the promise and self-confidence? The car looks the bees-knees in the flesh - and it also appears pretty tasty on paper. It is powered by a now-familiar AMG-sourced 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine which has been tuned by Aston to develop 671bhp and a thumping 800Nm. The gearbox is an eight-speed paddle-shift auto by ZF, driving enormous 325-section rear Michelin tyres via an electronically adjustable differential.

Specify all the many lightweight options (including Carbon Performance seats) and the DB12 weighs a refreshingly un-portly 1,685kg. That's the same as the outgoing DB11 and is one of the reasons why the car can hit 0-62mph in a claimed 3.6 seconds.

Even so, the car isn't meant to be a tyre-shredding monster in a straight line. It's designed to carry you across continents with breathtaking pace and refinement.