Aston Martin V12 Vanquish '04
Next up is a car that I have no experiences with in real life. I've seen it once when I was at a car show but never heard the sound or seen it drive in real life. So my Sound comparison will be based on YouTube videos if I find some and shouldn't be taken too serious.
I did hear and see it drive in the James Bond movie: Die Another Day. Seeing it in that movie made it my dreamcar for a while. For those who haven't seen the movie. This car can be invisible and shoots rockets while driving on ice. This is not Mario Kart so I won't be able to test how well it shoots other cars and apart from an invisible interior we are lucky enough to see this beautiful car. I also can't test it's handling on ice because GT5 doesn't allow me to put Snow Tyres on it.
SPECS
Max Power: 487 hp at 7000 rpm
Weight: 1835 kg
Performance Points: 509
Max Torque: 566 Nm at 5500 rpm
Sport Hard tyres
LOOKS
This car looks great. All Aston Martin's do in my opinion. The lines on this car are amazing.The hood with the middle bit heightened gives it a strong look. The back somehow seems wider than the front because of the abrupt change in the line behind the door. But when you look closer you'll see that that front and back are the same width. From the side it looks like it's going fast without moving because of the window and the (don't know how to describe it in English) the line accessory over the vent (?). The only thing I really don't like is the thick black line around the headlights. Maybe I'll paint the car black so I don't see them anymore.
SOUND
The sound in the video's I've found seems a bit louder and a lower tone than the one in the game. I'm not going to comment to much basing it on YouTube videos. I do like the sound in the game. Watching the replay with the surround sound on sounded great.
TESTS
Added Route X Speed Tests:
• Topspeed: 307,0
• 0-400m: 13,066
• 0-1000m: 23,055
• 0-100km/h: 5,099
• 0-200km/h: 15,200
• Max g: 0.67
Test 1: Nurburgring Variable Weather/Time lap time
Seemed like the game knew it failed on me because I couldn't test the car on snow because when I loaded up Nurburgring it was raining with 100% surface water. The closest I will get to snow and ice with this car.
My problem started in the very first corner. After two cars in the 300pp range I forgot the power of normal supercars. I barely held it on the track and continued with care. The Vanquish is an FR car so I expected oversteer. It was controllable oversteer though. Being easy on the throttle made sure I could get through most corners without a problem.
The first real troubles started at Schwedenkreuz (thanks Google), the fast corner before the corner with the gravelpit before the second sector split. I didn't manage to keep it on track and slammed into the wall. Ending my 2 lap clean streak I had build up with the slow cars.
Other than that there weren't real troubles with this car. Fast corners with the wet track were really fun to take. Letting go off the throttle for less than a second followed by full gas made sure you could slide a bit through them which is fun to do, but probably scary as hell if you try that in real life.
The second mistake was in corner before the straight with a banking like in Karussel. I couldn't get on the banking followed by a sort of a drift to regain the line. The really fast corner after the splittime on the straight was the best moment with this car. With the method I explained above this corner was a real blast to take at over 270 km/h. I really thought I would go off track but the car was great. Ended the lap with a time of 8:33,969 in the red.
In the second lap the rain had stopped and the lap started at 99% surface water. Knowing the handling of the car now it was a great lap. Coming up on Schwedenkreuz again it seemed like I was going to hit the wall again when I had 3 wheel in the grass but the car suprisingly got out of it and I could take the next corner with ease.
I continued through the fun fast sections again and managed to get onto the banking this time.
I was a bit more cautious in the fast corner at the straight dropping just below 270km/h and managed a clean lap ending at 84% surface water with a time of: 8:28,573.
Test 2: Controlling the oversteer in London.
I was thinking oversteer would be the biggest problem of this car so I took it to a city track with slow corners. After a couple of laps I found out that oversteer wasn't the problem. It was very easy to control and was only there if you tried to go full throttle through the slow corners.
The main problem was it's understeer while braking. You really need to have a good braking point. The corners that gave most problems were the two 90 degree corners. Braking too late and hard will cause it to understeer away from your line and braking too early means you will have to be careful with the throttle to not drift through the corners. After a couple of laps you will find the braking points and should have no problem getting this car around the track. Best lap time was: 59,906
Test 3: Top Gear Test Track Power Lap
Time for this cars second test in the UK. The real Vanquish did the track in 1:36,2. That seems a bit slow to me. The Vanquish S did it in 1:27,1.
Had some troubles getting a clean lap with this car. The other two I've reviewed only took one try to get a lap. But here I had some problems. First I braked too early and bumped into the tyres in Chicago. After that I understeered into the invisible wall at Bentley because I wanted to take it too fast. And after that I oversteered onto the final straight and spun out after going too fast through Follow-Through.
But the clean lap was great. A little oversteer in Chicago followed by a completely controlled Hammerhead. Bentley was no problem braking a bit which made it possible for me to take followthrough at full speed. Got two wheels on the grass in the last corners which slowed me down a bit but managed a time of: 1:22,628. A bit fast comparing it to the real world times.
CONCLUSION
I'm glad I chose another great car to review. Being a dreamcar of mine meant I had pretty high standards judging it. I like the sound in the game and I knew it looks good so I was more interested in the handling because I probably never get to test that in real life.
The laps on Nurburgring were amazing. I can advice anyone to take it onto a full wet track and enjoy the fast corners, especially the last one. It does have some problems with handling though as seen on the other two tracks. Oversteer at low speed and understeer when braking hard. The oversteer is really easy to control but you need to study a tracks braking points to not experience the understeer.
Final score is: 16/20. Yea, I just gave a Vanquish the same score as a Citroen C4. Although it's ofcourse a much better car I was biased with the first 2 reviews because I liked the cars in real life and biased review scores shouldn't be taken too serious
The Aston is a very good looking car and fun to drive. Can't wait for the V12 Vantage!
The following part was added later when I decided to rate the cars on three points: Looks, Handling and the Fun while driving this car.
Looks: 9/10
Handling: 7/10
Fun: 9/10
Total: 8.3/10
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