Road Trip: 2012 Aston Martin Virage Volante in Spain

RONDA, SPAIN—At the end of yet another long Canadian winter/spring, I found myself in the south of Spain. Better yet, for the first time ever, I found myself behind the wheel of Aston Martin's new Virage Volante grand touring convertible. As an evolution of the existing DB9, the hardtop Virage and its cloth-top convertible Volante kin are by provenance two of the most beautiful-to-look-at cars on the planet. Driving the new-for-2012 open-top Aston Martin on curvy Andalusian mountain roads — seemingly created for the purpose of making cars like the Virage Volante look good, in the way a Paris runway is erected to show off waif-like supermodels — isn't a bad experience, either. Yet, even in the life of a spoiled auto critic, perfection can be fleeting. On the return part of a one-day, 300-kilometre introductory drive — which started in the paddock of the Ascari Race Resort near the ancient town of Ronda, about an hour and a half from the airport in Malaga, Spain — my co-driver and I approached the mountain village of Gaucin for the second time. It was only a few hours after our first stop there but my co-driver was the first to spot the one thing we'd travelled thousands of kilometres to avoid: snow. Our initial stop earlier in the day had been much more pleasant. The sun was out. The top on the Virage Volante was down and it was a relatively balmy 8-10C. We sipped coffee as we enjoyed the Spanish town's famous views of Gibraltar, the Strait of Gibraltar and, on the clearest of days, Morocco on the far side of the strait. Gaucin was our first stop, a short break from piloting the Volante toward the Mediterranean coast and (hopefully) warmer weather. Like a lot of southern Spain, Gaucin is filling up with retired British expatriates. And with our black-on-black ride parked on the main drag, a couple of passers-by recognized our wheels as an Aston, of some sort. To answer the question of one interested local, the new Virage Volante fills the seemingly wafer-thin slice between the so-called “base” $200k-plus DB9 2+2 GT and the high-performance $300k-plus DBS. Although it's structurally based on the DB9, and stylistically sticks with a theme that started with the mid-1990s DB7, Aston's head pen, Marek Reichmann, has tailored the latest Aston GT with a new five-vane grille, revised headlights inspired by Aston's One-77 supercar, a carbon-fibre front splitter, new fenders and a new side-sill design that flows into a new diffuser out back. It's subtle. But compared with the older DB9, it looks more tailored, and fresher. Like the existing DB9 and DBS, the Virage Volante models are powered by a wonderfully usable 6.0-litre V12, mated exclusively to a six-speed automatic. With 490 hp and 570 lb.-ft. of torque engine specs, Aston says the car can scoot from zero to 100 km/h in 4.6 seconds, eventually topping out at 300 km/h. The new Aston GT isn't just a restyled DB9. Inside, the whole interior of the Virage Volante benefits from the quality gains that Aston applied to last year's new Rapide four-door. And a comprehensively redone suspension delivers the new Aston GT a much more refined and controlled ride over the older DB9. The Volante also has carbon-ceramic brakes as standard — helpful when we encountered a local sheepherder tending to his flock along the way. After leaving Gaucin for the first time, and skirting the city of Gibraltar to the south, we darted north through the largest city on the Bay of Gibraltar and one of the largest ports in Europe, Algeciras, before we would turn around and start heading back to our final destination northwest in Ronda. This meant plenty of seat time to take note of the driving improvements built into the Virage Volante over the DB9 convertible. In brief: If this was any other automaker, the Virage Volante would replace, instead of complement, the existing DB9 in its lineup. Made more obvious by the narrow Spanish two-lane roads bent by the mountains south of Ronda, none of the bigger 2+2 Aston GTs are as nimble as the smaller, two-seat Vantage models. Although I never saw the official top speeds on public roads, even when pressing on, the car's turn-in is particularly sharper than the DB9, while body motions are better controlled with the 2+2 avoiding undesirable understeer at anything under 8/10th driving. For those who want a 10/10th experience, a “wsport” button on the dash engages a sharper throttle response, quicker gear changes, firms up the suspension like an athlete who's been to the gym, and holds gears longer before up-shifting. Even when dealing with goats and other Spanish drivers, when switched to “track” mode, the Virage Volante's electronic stability control allows the driver to squeeze out a few angles' worth of oversteer with plenty of room to back off. One aspect of the new Virage Volante that was unexpected was its overall high levels of refinement. With Aston adding more sound deadening, and a more-responsive adaptive shock system (the system selects up to five different stiffness settings in “normal” mode, and a further five stiffer settings in “sport” mode), the car is quite capable of treating its occupants quietly and comfortably when the grand touring mood arises. While not as sharp in its cog swaps as a dual-clutch setup, its six-speed automatic is smooth and a good match to the velvety V12's subtle sounds that are ever-present. But just as I was becoming very fond of the new Virage Volante's iron fist/velvet glove persona, the unexpected did happen. The warm Spanish sun was losing out to the cooler cloud cover, forcing the car's outside temperature gauge to drop from its high of the low teens to just 2 or 3C (depending on whether we were driving uphill or down). Ignoring the old adage that, in Spain, the snow falls mainly on the plain, large, glutinous flakes of the white stuff started to drop. And drop some more. With the 2+2's top down, my first reaction was to just prod the throttle and outrun the snow. You know, go faster and the snow can't catch us. But the white flakes had become the size of meatballs and seemed to weigh just about as much. Plus, with the same amount of horsepower at my disposal as seven Smart cars, there was the small issue of traction from the decidedly summer performance rubber. So, instead, we simply pulled over, powered the top up in seconds, then made sure all of the Aston's electronic nannies were on and made our way back to Ronda, with a little fuss but definitely no muss. Like Aston's new Virage Volante, the snow ended up as an unexpected delight. 2012 Aston Martin Virage Volante WHAT I LIKED: A logical evolution of the British automaker's GT car ethos; extra refinements over DB9 warrant the extra costs. WHAT I DIDN'T: Only Aston fans may recognize the styling updates. EST. BASE PRICE: $240,000 ENGINE/POWER: 6.0L V12; 490 hp/570 lb.-ft. TRANSMISSION: Six-seed automatic COMPETITION: BMW 6 Series; Mercedes-Benz SL Class, Jaguar XK, Maserati Gran Turismo

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