Super Fury Animals

Each with a monster, 700bhp-plus V12, the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera and Ferrari 812 Superfast are the ultimate grand tourers from their respective marques. But which best nails its brief?

- Jethro Bovingdon

THIRTY SECONDS OR SO IS ALL IT TAKES for the Ferrari 812 Superfast to decimate everything you think you know about front-engined GT cars. Notions of giant, effortless strides that swallow time and distance, of engines that feel imperious and have such vast reserves that even rapid progress seems simple and devoid of the stresses and strains of lesser machines, of deliberate handling where the masses are obvious but wonderfully managed with rippling muscularity. GT cars as almost tidal, unstoppable forces.

That’s not the 812 Superfast’s style. A longlegged gait is replaced by a frenzy of action so extreme it feels almost chaotic, the engine is savagely sharp and doesn’t so much swallow journeys whole as attack them like a swarm of piranhas ripping at a carcass, and the cultured heavyweight chassis with calm, measured dynamics makes way for extreme agility and a manic, hyper-alert personality. Forget tidal. At times it can feel like you’ve been caught in the thrashing, disorientating, furious break of a 100-foot wave as it hits a rocky coastline.

So settle into the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera in a half euphoric, half-terrified daze and – for what feels like the first time since you started the Ferrari’s 789bhp V12 – take a breath. Some of the detailing is perhaps a shade fussy, but the architecture – a dash that seems to reach out and envelop you, high-shoulders and an imposing central tunnel that stretches back towards the transaxle – is somehow reassuring. Then you press the smooth, cool glass starter button and the 5.2-litre twin-turbocharged V12 starts with a yobbish (but heart-warming) howl that dissipates to a softly bassy, powerful refrain.