Within the age of downsizing, compelled by stricter emissions rules, Aston Martin dares to go towards the tide. The corporate just lately introduced a brand new twin-turbo V-12 engine with a colossal 824 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque. Why? That is what folks need.
Talking with Automotive Throttle, the corporate’s product technique boss Alex Lengthy says inner research have proven that folks simply need massive engines. It is so simple as that. In 2024 when tiny three-cylinder 1.0-liter turbocharged engines are prevalent in Europe, Aston Martin reckons that not even a V-6 makes the minimize. Lengthy mentions a “true emotional connection” between drivers and a V-12 or a V-8 {that a} smaller six-cylinder engine can’t ship, or no less than it “does not but.”
After all, the likes of Ferrari, Maserati, and McLaren would beg to vary with their V-6 supercars. Aston Martin itself had deliberate six-cylinder fashions not that a few years in the past. The Valhalla was initially speculated to get a twin-turbo V-6 however the British luxurious marque in the end determined to go together with AMG’s brawny V-8 as a substitute. The mid-engine Vanquish Imaginative and prescient idea debuted with a V-6 earlier than the corporate pulled the plug in late 2019.
The DBX did get an inline-six a number of years in the past in China with a Mercedes-sourced 3.0-liter engine. Nevertheless, Aston Martin discontinued the smaller engine with the SUV’s current facelift. Going ahead, the Lamborghini Urus rival is obtainable completely in DBX707 taste.
Lengthy believes six-cylinder engines are extra mainstream than a V-8, not to mention a V-12, arguing that smaller powertrains “very a lot aren’t within the premium phase.”
Aston Martin had deliberate to go fully electrical by the top of the last decade. Nevertheless, the Gaydon-based marque has reversed course and can proceed to make vehicles with combustion engines effectively into the 2030s. Firm boss Lawrence Stroll instructed Autocar earlier this yr that clients need “sounds and smells” coming from ICE. Plug-in hybrids are coming since AM is not proof against more and more harder laws relating to emissions requirements.
