As cool as Ever
August 24, 2008
The DB9 has never had any problem getting its mojo working รข€“ this remains one seriously cool car
Still beautiful on the outside and now much better on the inside
Aston Martin doesn't actually need to face-lift the DB9. It's got its own fridge on the Cool Wall, it's still selling well and the whole world knows it's stunningly good-looking. Aston is well aware of this, so the new DB9 looks all-but identical to the last one. (For the anoraks among you, the big news is that the grille has lost a single horizontal bar. Oh, and the wing mirrors are now the same designs those on the DBS.) It's some tribute to the original design that, after four years of sales, this car still looks bang up to date. But perhaps that has as much to do with the other cars in the range looking very similar - if none of them advances the design language, none of them looks old hat. But there were some areas that needed
attention. Similar to the Vanquish before it, the DB9's interior simply had too much of a parts-bin feel. Not now. The fascia from the DBS has been carried over - with a slightly different finish. Gone is the old confusing layout with its myriad buttons, replaced by a simple design that makes it much easier to do everything from work your phone to change a track on your iPod. You even get a proper vanity mirror now, with its own slidey cover, and not a Ford parts-bin glue-on job. So, bits that needed leaving alone have been left, others have been changed - from this point of view, the DB9 is a big step forward. But unlike the V8 Vantage that Tom Ford has driven, the rest of the experience hasn't been tweaked to where I'd like it. First, the good news - the
Touchtronic transmission has been fine-tuned to give smoother shifts. The old one hindered your progress sometimes because it was a bit clunky, but up- and down-shifts are now much slicker. On the way down, you get a small blip of the throttle (nothing new there), but the more purposeful way it does it is new and better. No wishy-washy hesitation here - you want a gear, you get it.>'It's some tribute to the original design that, after four years of sales, this car still looks bang up to date'
But everywhere else left me feeling a touch disappointed. Aston is keen to trumpet the extra
power you get from the engine, and, sure, 20bhp and 22lb ft aren't to be sniffed at, but when the old DB9 had 450bhp, the differences are, in reality, quite small. The DB9 was a very fast car; now it's a very fast car. It's just a shame this tweak hasn't come with a slightly more hardcore exhaust note - I reckon you'll notice the transmission whine more than the engine. But the biggest disappointment for me is the chassis. Although this DB9 now has new Bilsteindampers which have resulted in a bit of extra give in the chassis and ride quality, the dynamic problems the DB9 had have still not been resolved. OK, so as a GT, the DB9 performs beautifully, but if you want to ask a bit more of it - go for a drive rather than a cruise - then there are other cars out there, other Astons, that will reward you more. Get a mid-corner bump, when you're gunning it and the rear suspension is loaded up, and you get this strange rolling effect from the back end. I drove a Sports Pack car a while ago, and the revised spring rates and lower unsprung mass cured this. I was hoping that the face-lift would've done the same thing, but it seems you've still got to specify that option if you want the best-handling DB9. Which is a shame, because it takes the shine off what is otherwise a much improved car, and one which now has the interior to match the price tag. Aston has listened to the critics to give a much improved V8 Vantage, but it could have done with listening a bit more...<< Back
