This is the Aston Martin DBS – the first modern classic to join the channel and one of my dream cars! The Aston Martin DBS is a 2008/2009 naturally aspirated V12 manual developing 510bhp – it was made instantly famous after featuring in the Daniel Craig James Bond film – Casino Royale – and I’ve loved it ever since! Growing up with my uncle embedded in the world of Aston Martin I’ve loved the brand from a very early age so, today is a very special day to be sharing with you!
So hello as the title of this video would suggest today is a really special day but before we go outside and share the car with you uh off the back of the recent turbo s collection video turns out you guys really like stories so today it’s story time we are standing in the workshop of chris shenton engineering it just so happens to be my uncle and my love and
Appreciation for aston martin started right here on this floor right here and actually working on that very car um this is where i had my first job my first work experience now i’m not gonna pretend like i have much mechanical or engineering knowledge at all because my sole job was uh swapping the starter motors on db4s and db5s that was it so it’s not like i
Learnt much but i used to spend summers here between school and this was my first physical interaction with the aston martin brand and i know that i worked on this car uh because it just so happens to be my uncle’s car uh it’s been in his ownership for as long as i can recall that every time i see it takes me right back to those summers i was working on these
Cars when i was between the age of 14 and 16. it was at that time where you always have those dreams don’t you you know clients would come in and i’d just be this young guy working on these cars and you would just aspire to what these guys were doing they were coming in here dropping off their db5 and i just thought you know one day wouldn’t it be awesome to be
An aston martin owner well i’m stood here today literally right here i used to work on these cars one of them being that car exactly and outside i’m gonna take you for a walk and talk about my very own aston martin dbs there’s one thing that cameras suck at it’s conveying weight but i cannot tell you how dense and heavy these things are so i mean this is pretty
Heavy for me now changing these things day in day out this is the starter motor for a db4 in fact this is a this is an original one look check it out right here this is an unused db4 starter motor these are super rare pretty sure my uncle put me on this because when i was 14 i was extra small and so head in there is super tight so what you would do is take off
The engine manifold and then you can just see the starter motor sits just there so with these out this would then fit in there and as a dainty teenager i could get my hands in there but i remember it was so tight and this thing is so heavy used to have to hold it with one hand while you fixed on the uh first bolt but that’s how it all started appreciation with
Greasy starter motors so here it is honestly i can’t tell you how happy i am with this thing if you tuned in to the beginning of the modern classics uh episodes last year it was the first time that i ever stepped foot into a dbs so it was very kindly lent to me by aston martin works and it was a manual that’s the really important thing which we shall touch on
Shortly uh but being completely truthful um i was never a big fan of the standard db9 and i thought when i drive the dbs you know they say don’t meet your heroes is it going to be a bit sloppy it was far from it it’s such a beautiful driving experience which we shall share with you uh soon but today we’re gonna go around a walk and talk of the specs and features
Of this gloriously sculpted car so it’s a uh well actually this is a 2008 car old albeit it was originally registered as a 2009 car so it was built towards the end of 2008 uh it was only eight and nine that they made the dbs available as a manual which is why i was very specifically after an eight or nine car so despite the fact that it says 07 there it is actually
Originally registered as a 09 car um 07 it’s just a mild nod to the cheesy james bond theme that’s the only reason we’ve got an 07 plate on there the color sadly today it’s not super sunny story of my life but it’s actually called a storm black now we’ll try and get a shot of b-roll and splice it on top because if you get up close to the paint it has a stunning
Red fleck in it it just makes the whole bodywork flare out and come alive and really shows up this amazing sculpture and contours so let’s start with exterior features obviously the biggest thing really that differentiates the dbs over the db9 first and foremost is the way it looks now when this car launched i think we’ll all agree it was most famously launched
In casino royale as the first daniel craig bond car ever since that day i’ve just been besotted with the way it looks now over its lifespan which is only about 10 years i think it’s always looked good but something about it over the last two or three years i think it’s come full circle in the way it looks the aesthetics of it are truly timeless it’s a beautiful
Beautiful thing anyway let’s go and highlight some of the features which qualifies this as a dbs starting with wheels and brakes so these wheels were launched on this car they were exclusive to the dbs uh with this being a 10 year old car it had done 23 000 miles and it was beginning to show some early signs of wear and tear namely the brake calipers which here
Look nice and shiny were not so we actually had those resprayed so they’re looking extra fresher now but other than that the condition of the carbon ceramics is spot on uh that was also a unique feature on the dbs back in the day when this lawn it was 180 000 pounds imagine that 10 years ago i mean 180 grand car now is a lot and by the time you put some extras
On it it was pushing towards 200 grand 10 years ago so the car came with lots of sexy features namely weight saving stuff so the car is 65 kilograms lighter than the standard db9 and that is in part two carbon ceramic brakes the whole bonnet is carbon fiber the wings are carbon fiber and the boot is also carbon fiber unlike the modern day acids when you lift up
The boot or the bonnet you can actually see that it’s made of carbon fiber but interestingly in order to get the paint to match equally between the more conventional steel and aluminium panels with the carbon panels they coated it in a special 200 micron thick epoxy which would give it this beautiful coat so that when you’re painting carbon versus normal panels
You wouldn’t get a difference in weave or gives it that consistent black throughout which i think is a quite a nice touch and then we have these here these carbon arms and everything you look at it’s almost sculpture it’s so beautiful this is the era when you put the key in the dash and before the car even started up three things appeared on your console it was
Power beauty and soul and as cheesy as that is i think it summarizes this era of aston martin perfectly and then you depressed the key which wasn’t called a key it was called look at this it’s called an ecu and this is where it gets even cheesier because that stands for the wait for it emotional control unit exceptionally cheesy but a beautiful thing um and
Then we come around to the back sculpture around here gets turned up to 11. uh more carbon fiber so the diffuser if you were to compare the standard db9 rare and this they almost look like two different cars when this launched back in 2008 that was considered a really aggressive diffuser and the fact that it was also made of carbon fiber just makes the whole
Thing so beautiful and then coming around to the boot lid which is also exclusive to this car also all made in carbon it had that exaggerated kick here now i have no idea if it actually contributed to any aerodynamic efficiencies or downfalls but it just looks really sexy doesn’t it as does i love the s on dbs it just suggests sexy road driving so what else
Uh was exclusive to the car uh basically every body panel on the exterior other than the doors was exclusive to dbs now in the right light when you have a nice clean black car okay this is fairly clean but it’s not spot on it hasn’t been to nvn yet for any treatment but all of this sculpture here on these exaggerated side grills just makes the whole car just
Sit so well it also had a lower ride height as well versus the standard car and as we come back round to the front again um things like this these big vents here now what is unique to the front of this car is that the previous owner actually had the grill painted in black i’m still in two minds whether or not i actually like that or not and i’d be interested to
Hear from you actually uh please share your opinion with me in the comments below should i return it to silver or maybe a brushed aluminium finish i think when you stand back from the car it might tie in more with these vents here so perhaps that’s something i’ll end up doing a little bit further down the line let’s just talk about these as well once again more
Carbon fiber exaggerated front splitter and that’s just to help keep the nose down at higher speeds so yeah wonderful thing wonderful thing just before we discuss the interior we gotta check out this engine here we are this is of course it’s not the last of the naturally aspirated v12s from aston but it’s certainly one of the coolest behold six liters of v12
Naturally aspirated awesomeness this is the way this thing sounds i think that’s the other defining feature of this car is the fact that it’s a naturally aspirated manual v12 i mean these are a real dying breed so developing 510 horsepower uh one of the videos i’d like to do being 10 years old and 23 000 miles it will be interesting to see how much of that power
Has been lost at some point although driving it it actually it goes like hell uh so i’d like to get it on a dyno at some point and really find out where it is right now and perhaps any uh tweaks or tunes that we can do to perhaps bring it back or even beyond let’s see but um when it launched out of the box it was 510 horsepower 420 pounds feet of torque and it
Was generating over 300 brake horsepower per ton which back then was putting it right up there was a proper supercars don’t forget at the time this was going head-to-head with the likes of the ferrari 599 gtb so yeah it had some stiff competition at that time and from what i can tell they they brought that a game so we will discuss more about the bespoke chassis
Tweaks and engine upgrades when we go for a drive but now i reckon it’s worth hopping inside for me the inside is just as beautiful as the outside with the exception of the infotainment system which probably felt old when it was new more of that in a minute so here we are the inside of the car so when the car launched uh they didn’t actually offer back seats it
Was what’s known as a two plus two only the plus was only for your handbag uh because they ripped all of the seats out half of that was for a weight saving measure but in 2010 uh when they launched the automatic version of this car for some reason they also opted for the option to respec your back seat but i like it as it is the dbs after all stands for it being
Slightly more lightweight and just a pure driving experience so no seats in the back more space for your bags anyway ecu again we’ll get a close-up of that for you but it’s one of the most unique applications of a key i think i’ve still ever seen i actually prefer it to keyless go but because at least you still have this really nice slot in order to place your
Key it just sits in there really flush we won’t start it until the end because i want to save the best until last but uh this right here that is what it’s all about this six speed manual transmission when it launched this actually got quite a lot of criticism because it is quite as far as manual sticks goes that’s quite a chunky stick but just when you grab it
What i really like is when my ring bangs against it it’s just like a it’s a decent solid stick and when you shift with it it’s a positive heavy shift and you just ride the talk with it anyway i could talk about how it drives up all day but we’ll save that for the next video so um what i was particularly after when trying to hunt down one of these cars was black
Number one and then the interior had to be a combination of both alcantara in the middle and leather bolsters not only that but the condition of that needed to be pretty good now these cars over the years have been properly used the condition was fantastic we did have a slight bit of cosmetic work done on the dashboard because some of the stitching had sort of
Peeled off the dash but that was a real quick fix other than that the interior is immaculate it even still smells fresh the infotainment system which i just mentioned uh once again i’ll open that when we go for the first drive but that would sit here in this central console um when you open up that screen that’s the only thing that really dates it it really feels
Like you’re interacting with ms-dos it is atrocious now i am speaking to some people to see if we can get some interesting upgrades for it which i shall share with you soon and then down here lowest part of the dash we have the traction control active damper settings parking assist and fog lights and then we have this interesting cup holder yes that is a that’s
That’s aston’s idea of a retractable cup holder it doesn’t hold any cups i don’t know what they’re actually thinking about they definitely put more attention into this but one thing i will say everything that you do interact with holder clip included feels quality i mean this could be out of a jewelry showroom it doesn’t do a very good job of holding the cups
But it feels amazing as does everything that you interact with switch gear-wise there we have it the first look at the dbs i did catch it in some sunlight not too long ago and there’s some pretty bad swirl marks on it so we’ll take it to mbn get it all looking absolutely spot on and apply the ppf and then see what this sculpture looks like under some proper
Lights so much for watching and i’ll see you next time ciao you
Transcribed from video
NEW CAR DAY! My 'New' Aston Martin DBS V12 Manual! By Mr JWW