Rob's Column: Aston Martin DBS, Manual vs Superleggera

Hattie: Morning! I'm Hattie. It's Tuesday the tenth of November, this is episode three of the Vertar Show, and in London it's six degrees, partly cloudy, and dark by twenty past four. So a good day for a big V12, even if it's only on paper. Rob's on today, talking about his new column: three generations of Aston Martin DBS, and the one gearbox that sorts out their prices.

Hattie: Right. Rob Ashby writes our weekly column on Vertar, and this week he's been through every DBS for sale at UK specialists, the David Brown classics, the 2007 V12 and the Superleggera, and found a ten-year-old manual asking the same as a car with two hundred more horsepower. Rob, morning.

Rob: Morning, Hattie. Yes, that's what started it. A 2008 DBS with a six-speed manual, about a hundred and twenty grand. And a few listings along, a 2018 Superleggera with seven hundred and fifteen horsepower... for about a hundred and twenty grand.

Hattie: So within a couple of hundred quid of each other.

Rob: A hundred and forty pounds, if you want to be pedantic. Which I do.

Hattie: Course you do. Okay, before we get to the gearbox, tell me how big this corner is. I'd have guessed a DBS was a fairly rare thing to find.

Rob: More common than you'd think. There were fifty when I wrote it, fifty-two this morning, at thirty-four dealers. Six left a dealer in the last month, and there's been one price cut. It's quiet and steady. The odd thing is that the name covers three cars that share a badge and, in two of them, a V12.

Hattie: And I'm guessing the old ones sort of sit off to one side.

Rob: They do. Seven of them, 1968 to 1971, from about a hundred and twenty-five to a hundred and ninety-five grand. Aston Workshop, in Beamish, has a 1969 DBS Vantage in Celeste Blue, triple carburettors, a proper four-seat grand tourer. But those trade among themselves. The arithmetic I care about is between the other two.

Hattie: Go on, then. The manual.

Rob: Right. Of the 2007 to 2012 cars, every automatic with a price showing is asking between about seventy and a hundred and five grand. Every manual is between ninety-five and a hundred and thirty. The manuals start roughly where the automatics stop. It sorts the whole list.

Hattie: Mm.

Rob: And the top one's my favourite bit. A 2009 manual in Toro Red at Nicholas Mee, in Hatfield. The listing says Toro Red is on only nine DBS in the factory records, and only two of those were right-hand-drive UK cars. Sixteen and a half thousand miles. And it's already got a deposit on it.

Hattie: You sound like you'd have liked to put that deposit down yourself.

Rob: Guilty. But it's the gearbox, the colour and the low miles in one car, and I can't see that turning up twice.

Hattie: Okay, but this is where I don't quite follow you. The Superleggera's a twin-turbo V12, seven hundred and fifteen horsepower, a claimed two hundred and eleven miles an hour, for the same money as a 2008 car. I think some of that manual premium is people paying for a feeling more than a car—

Rob: It's a clutch pedal, Hattie, not a feeling. The DBS was one of the last big front-engined V12s you could buy with a gear lever. The Touchtronic is a perfectly good gearbox in a grand tourer, but there'll always be more automatics than manuals.

Hattie: Fine, but you're the one counting. Twenty-six of the newer cars against your five manuals.

Rob: Five when I wrote it. Six this morning, actually. One arrived yesterday at Stratton Motor Company, in Long Stratton. A 2009 in Meteorite Silver, about twenty-three thousand miles, no price showing yet.

Hattie: So your combination that can't get more common got one car more common overnight.

Rob: Fair. I'll take that. It doesn't change the shape of it, though. The Superleggeras still outnumber them more than four to one.

Hattie: And I'll give you that the Superleggera's the sensible one. Tell me where they start.

Rob: About a hundred and twenty grand for a 2018 coupé, and they climb slowly. Acklam Cars, in Middlesbrough, has the grey one I mentioned, eighteen and a half thousand miles. Volantes start just under a hundred and forty. And the one price cut in the whole market was a 2020 coupé at Redline Specialist Cars, in Leeds, down two thousand to about a hundred and twenty-eight.

Hattie: That was bang on the median for the lot of them in your column.

Rob: It was when I wrote it. The middle's moved up to about a hundred and thirty grand this morning, so that car now sits just under it.

Hattie: Then there's the very top, which I want to hear you defend.

Rob: The specials. The Supercar Rooms, in Hartlebury, has a 2023 770 Ultimate in Minotaur Green, one of three hundred coupés, about two hundred and seventy-five grand. And then Nicholas Mee again, with the DBS GT Zagato verification prototype at nearly one point four million. That's beyond any sensible comparison.

Hattie: So, your pick. I think I can guess.

Rob: You can. The McGurk car, in Kineton, that 2008 manual from the start. Storm Black, one owner from new, just under twenty-four thousand miles. And what I'd watch is the cheapest Superleggera coupés, because they'll tell us first whether dealers think the newer car is as firm as the manual.

Hattie: Rob, thank you. The full column's on vertar.com, under Features, with all his cars linked.

Rob: Thanks, Hattie. Don't let her talk you out of the manual.

Hattie: Right, so... across the whole market there are just over six and a half thousand cars on Vertar this morning. The biggest price change is a 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse at Premier GT, in Worthing, down from two point eight million to two and a half. A Veyron was in episode one as well, alongside the 300 SL and the SLS, and it still makes Rob's Zagato prototype look modest. And if Rob's won you over on manuals but not on the money, the newest arrival is a 2004 Alfa Romeo GTV, the 3.2 V6 with a manual, at Classic Car Shop, in Whaley Bridge, about fifteen grand.

Hattie: No new messages in the inbox this morning, which I'm choosing not to take personally. If you've got a DBS, or you think Rob's wrong about the gearbox, I'd really like to hear it.

Hattie: If it were me... I'd go where Rob didn't. The 1969 DBS Vantage in Celeste Blue at Aston Workshop, about a hundred and eighty grand. If I'm paying extra for a manual anyway, I want the one with three carburettors, four seats and a colour you'd notice on a grey six-degree morning.

Hattie: That's us for today. If you enjoyed it, like and subscribe, it honestly helps. And get in touch at hattie at vertar dot com: what you're driving, what you're hunting for, which car I should look at next. Watching on YouTube? Leave a comment, I read every one. See you tomorrow.