Subtle is likely not your first thought as you look upon the regal lines of the Aston Martin DB12 S. And it definitely won’t be when you contemplate the luxury GT’s $276,000 starting price in coupe form. With a bellowing V-8 engine, whiplash performance, and superstar looks, this is a car that doesn’t just say you’ve arrived but also shouts whenever you are literally arriving.
Yet the differences that distinguish the S from the regular DB12 that will continue to be sold alongside do indeed qualify as subtle. There’s a small gain in horsepower, sharpened off-the-line acceleration, and visual changes so minor even existing DB12 owners will struggle to notice them. Chassis tweaks are slight too, with retuned dampers, tweaked suspension geometry, and a thicker rear anti-roll bar. Mixed with the myriad software tweaks and tucks that come with almost all modern upgrades, the result is a car that’s very slightly better in numerous areas than the already excellent regular DB12.
Aston has already done S versions of both the Vantage and the DBX, so the changes made to the DB12 S are familiar. The increase in horsepower is pretty much a rounding error, with the AMG-sourced twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 now boasting a peak of 690 hp, that representing a 19-hp increase over the regular DB12. Peak torque for both variants is an identical 590 lb-ft. Power is delivered exclusively to the rear wheels through an eight-speed transaxle, and on Aston’s numbers, the S’s 3.4-second 60-mph time is a tenth quicker than the standard car, this credited to snappier gearbox software rather than the higher output.
I searched hard for the extra horses during my drive of the DB12 S in the south of France, exploring every part of the V-8’s broad rev range in search of them. This was hugely enjoyable, but I honestly struggled to discern any difference in accelerative fury over my memories of the regular DB12. Like Aston’s other nonhybrid models, the S needs either revs or a beat of time to get the turbos spinning hard. Lag would be too harsh a descriptor, but there is a definite elasticity to the throttle response below about 3500 rpm as boost pressure builds.
But once the V-8 is into the top half of its rev range it pulls with a savagery that, even on dry asphalt, had the rear axle squirming as it hunted traction in lower gears. The DB12 might be cast as the most laid-back grand tourer in Aston’s current sports-car lineup, but it still delivers visceral thrills. I didn’t get anywhere near Aston’s claimed 202-mph top speed for the S, but the rate at which the S devoured straights left me in no doubt it would have no difficulty delivering that number.
The S also gets the option of a new titanium exhaust system, this costing a hefty $14,400 supplement and having been designed to increase both bass notes and overall volume. Like the regular exhaust, this is a switchable system, with the sports mode making it sound truly spectacular as the engine gets toward its 7000-rpm redline. Yet while I loved listening to the noise of the hard-working engine bouncing back from rock faces next to mountain roads, the upgraded exhaust stayed pretty loud and angry even in its quieter mode, a little raucous for the DB12’s natural role as a long-distance luxury hauler. The gearbox shifts smoothly in the gentlest drive mode, GT, but shifting using the steering-wheel paddles has become noticeably quicker, the hesitation I remember from the regular DB12 seemingly programmed out.
The chassis revisions are—again—subtle. According to Aston execs, the changes are deliberately nuanced rather than radical alterations. In essence, the GT and Sport modes have effectively been moved up half a stop in terms of the firmness of the switchable dampers, with both still feeling pliant and composed on generally smooth French asphalt. The suspension alignment alterations, with more negative camber on the back axle and a thicker anti-roll-bar diameter at the rear, were apparently intended to reduce low-speed understeer. I’m happy to confirm there was no low-speed understeer.
The most obvious change—though still subtle—is to the steering. The S still has a relatively low-geared rack by modern sports-car standards, but there is a little more off-center feel, and weighting has increased. The end result felt almost perfectly judged for a car of this type: Front-end reactions are fast and proportional without ever feeling darty. But the tweaks have brought a little tramlining when braking hard over an imperfect road surface, the steering wheel moving as the front axle responds to bumps and camber changes.
This brings the other big hardware alteration, with the S getting carbon-ceramic brakes as standard—they are only offered as an option on the regular DB12. These bring the benefit of reducing unsprung mass by nearly 60 pounds compared with the cast-iron brakes, and the new brakes provided tireless retardation under the thermal loads possible on-road. But, as with some other Aston carbon-ceramic brakes, they also brought some rumble and graunching noises under gentle pressure at low speeds.
The electronically controlled limited-slip differential at the rear axle has also been retuned. When Aston first offered torque vectoring in the 2018 Vantage, the system was programmed to deliver aggressive attitude adjustment under harder loadings, to an extent which sometimes made it feel as if the car was about to break into lurid oversteer well before the point it was actually running short of grip. Calibration of the system has been progressively improved since then, and in the DB12 S, the torque vectoring functions so unobtrusively it was rare that I could feel its intervention while driving in GT mode. There was more sense of intervention in Sport, but then less in Sport Plus. This tracks with our experience in the current Vantage, where Aston’s engineers have referred to Sport as the “party mode.”
One other issue for would-be DB12 buyers is likely to be the smallness of the visual changes that distinguish the S. The new car gets small “S” badges on the front fenders, these apparently produced by the same jewelry-making company that crafts Aston’s other badging. But apart from that, the biggest alterations are the redesigned front bumper, with Formula 1–inspired pseudo-winglets incorporated at the outer edges and at the back, where there are now four exhaust tailpipes, two stacked slightly on each side, where the stock car just has a pair.
For anyone coming to the DB12 fresh, the S is definitely the most appealing version and the one to go for. But for existing DB12 owners, the limited changes made to the S are unlikely to justify trading it in for the improved version. You could certainly make the case that makes it a little too subtle.
The DB12’s other challenge remains one of positioning: It’s the middle child of Aston’s three front-engine sports cars. The Vantage is both less expensive and more raw, a rowdy little aristocratic hooligan. And the Vanquish has both a magnificent twin-turbo V-12 and the cachet of being the range-topping, money-no-object choice. Perhaps mindful of that, Aston has made the supplement being charged for the DB12 S a relatively modest one—$14,000 really isn’t much at this end of the market, and $10,800 of that difference would be negated by adding the S’s standard carbon-ceramic brakes to the regular car.
In that context, perhaps S should really stand for “sensible.”
