Aston Martin DBS Volante : £172,000

Search Amazon.com
It's a fair question: why, Aston, would you go to all the effort of stiffening, strengthening and lightening the DB9 Coupe to turn it into the hardcore DBS (yes, that's the Bond car, let's get it out the way now)... and then go and cut the roof off to create the DBS Volante?
Because of the noise, that's why. More than the speed, more than the impressively nimble handling, that's what this car is all about: monstrous, glorious, technicolour noise.
It's the sort of sound that brings you out in goose pimples and excessive simile: roof down, rebounding off drystone hedges, it's like being sat in the centre of a orchestra, a bassy, brassy growl at low revs, climbing to a full-strings-and-woodwinds crescendo as you pummel the V12 towards 7,000rpm.
And yes, OK, let's mention the fastness. Because the DBS Volante has a lot of it: 4.3 seconds to 60mph, a top speed of 191mph and more mid-range torque than you could ever reasonably use without a deluge of letters from Her Majesty's on your doorstep a few days later. That 510bhp, 6.0-litre engine is unmodified from the DBS coupe, and it's a beauty: tractable and relaxed when you need it to be, blood-curdling when you floor it.
For something that's so... so bloody big and front-engined and open-topped, the DBS Volante handles. Aston says the DBS's tub is so stiff that, even with the roof cut off, it didn't require any extra reinforcement - which means the convertible weighs just 115kg more than the coupe. And though the chassis is some 25 less rigid than the DBS Coupe, there's no more than the merest hint of flex. You'll need to be pushing on at such a rate to find it that you'll be in very real danger of destroying major geographical landmarks if you get it wrong.
The DBS Volante isn't perfect. The giant gearlever - nicked off an Astra VXR, surely? - is still too big and clunky to flick between gears easily. Unless you've fitted the rear seat baffle, there's a lot of buffeting above 60mph or so (at 191mph, I can only presume, your face will be inexorably sucked down the back of the driver's seat). And, though the new Bang & Olufsen stereo is astonishing, the pair of dashboard-mounted tweeters are so shiny that they strobe streetlights straight into your face. Small gripes, but at £172,000, small gripes are important.

And then there's the big one: the one about whether the DBS Volante makes any sense. On one level, maybe not: if you want ‘the fast Aston', it's got to be the DBS Coupe. If you're after a drop-top, the DBS Volante costs 50 per cent more than the DB9 Volante: it isn't 50 per cent more car (not, for a second, that it will deter the DBS's likely buyers: expect the waiting list to read like a who's who of footballers who've recently renegotiated contracts).

But hell, why do we have to justify it rationally? The DBS Volante feels special: beautiful, unique, flawed and, above all, magnificently noisy. It is, and that's all that matters.