2024 Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimate First Drive: A Special Kind of Throwback

The new 2024 Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimate is the last of the British carmaker's present-generation DBS models, and Aston Martin will build just 499 examples. But as the company gears up to launch a wave of new offerings over the coming 24 months, its flagship front-engine supercar is not leaving the scene quietly. The snarling V-12 engine under its hood now makes 760 hp, and on an empty autobahn it will take you all the way to 211 mph.

The 2024 Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimate's 45-hp bump over the DBS Superleggera—its peak torque output of 664 lb-ft at 1,500-5,000 rpm remains unchanged—comes courtesy of fuel and ignition calibration changes and a 7 percent increase in turbo-boost pressure. Aston's intoxicating 5.2-liter twin-turbo V-12 is in its eighth year of production, but age certainly has not made it any less addictive. In this DBS 770 Ultimate specification, it makes 27 percent more power and 29 percent more torque than the version that powered the DB11 back in 2016.

Horsepower makes headlines, but the 2024 Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimate's real story lies within all the detail work that went into the rest of the car to help you make the most of it.

Aston increased the car's front-end lateral stiffness by 25 percent, and a new shear panel under the rear of the chassis helps increase overall torsional rigidity by 3 percent. The stiffer, more rigid platform allows subtle tuning of the suspension damping characteristics of the electronically controlled shocks to improve both agility and control of vertical body motions. Compliance is removed from the steering column to improve feel and response. The eight-speed ZF automatic transmission is recalibrated to deliver quicker, smoother shifts.

What all that adds up to is a DBS that feels more concise, more precise on the road than before. The front end reacts the moment you pull the steering wheel off-center, the recalibrated shocks offering greater support across the rear axle to help reduce understeer and improve turn-in response. The dialogue with the road through the front and rear tires is more intimate than before, yet the ride retains the veneer of compliance that is a hallmark of the best modern Aston Martins.

But there is an edge to the 2024 Aston Martin DBS 700 Ultimate.

April showers have the tarmac glistening as I head out on the drive loop Aston Martin provided for this first drive. Although I'm less than an hour away from the company's factory in Gaydon, England, where the DBS 770 Ultimate is built, the test car is left-hand drive. This has my fingertips tingling as I dodge the $400,000-plus coupe around the heavy trucks and giant potholes that infest Britain's badly built and poorly maintained roads. I'm taking it easy, the powertrain and chassis settings in their softest GT mode.

After a few miles of settling in, it's time to start experimenting. Switching the chassis into Sport and then Sport+ mode produces the expected damper stiffening and sharpening of the steering. But despite a firmer ride, it's not harsh. Mechanical noise from the suspension is suppressed well, and even in Sport+ there's still a veneer of comfort to it all. On wet roads, it's best to let the chassis breathe a little, though, so I settle on GT mode. The big Aston moves a little more on its springs, but the motions are deftly controlled.

Selecting Sport and then Sport+ sprinkles the digital instrument panel in cliché red hues and elicits more snarl and snap-crackle-pop from the exhaust, though the computer-generated aural fireworks are—thankfully—more subtly rendered than in some recent Astons. More important, the big V-12 feels instantly more alert, not that any engine that happily revs to 7,000 rpm yet delivers its peak torque from just 1,500 rpm could ever be considered lazy.

The DBS trickles along in fourth gear, the transmission in manual mode. A decisive squeeze of the gas pedal sees the big two-door lunge forward, and then, as the tach needle swings past 3,500 rpm, there's a rear-end wiggle as torque and power momentarily overwhelm the traction control. I discover even with everything set in GT mode and the ZF transmission shifting itself, it's still possible to zing the rear wheels momentarily under hard acceleration on wet roads at 5,000 rpm or more. And then it hit me: Virage Vantage!

The final car conceived and engineered before Ford Motor Co. took over the company in 1991 and greenlit the DB7, the Aston Martin Virage was hand built in tiny numbers—and it looked the part. There were big panel gaps, exposed screws, and hardware pirated from cheap and cheerful mass-market cars—Audi headlights, VW taillights, and in later models a steering wheel from a Ford Crown Vic. Aston made just 1,050 Virages between 1989 and 2000.

The Vantage version looked a lot like the regular Virage, though it shared no exterior panels other than the roof and doors. The engine made it special: The charismatic 5.3-liter quad-cam Aston Martin V-8 designed by Tadek Marek in the 1960s had two—count 'em!—superchargers, one mounted over each cylinder bank, and they helped the engine punch out at as much as 585 hp and 555 lb-ft of torque. Those numbers might not sound over the top in the context of the new DBS 770 Ultimate, but they were otherworldly in the early 1990s. Especially in a car built in an era before stability control, or even traction control.

I tested a Virage Vantage in the early '90s and quickly learned to treat the gas pedal like it was made of eggshells, especially on a damp surface. It remains one of the most fearsome things I've ever driven on a British road, the only car in which I never dared poke the bear. Unlike the Virage Vantage, the muscular new 2024 Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimate won't rip your head off if you drop your guard. But you can feel the ghost of the Virage Vantage grinning at you when you unleash the mighty V-12.

Simon Newton, Aston Martin's head of vehicle engineering, smiles when I mention the Virage Vantage. The outgoing DBS had a reputation for getting a little unruly when you punched the throttle at low speeds in low gears. To help better get the DBS 770 Ultimate's power to the ground under such conditions, the V-12's torque curve is carefully reshaped so that in the first five gears, all 664 lb-ft is not available until 4,000 rpm. "We wanted to make the 770 Ultimate more drivable," Newton says. There's still an edge to it, though, I suggest. The Aston engineer grins. "We didn't completely want to get away from the DBS character."

In addition to all the detail-oriented engineering changes, the DBS 770 Ultimate also gets a mild cosmetic makeover, with a new splitter and outboard air intakes up front, new vents on the giant clamshell hood, a new carbon-fiber sill panel, and a redesigned rear diffuser. The visual design cues of the new 21-inch aluminum wheels echo those seen on the brain-melting Valkyrie and the one-of-a-kind Victor, and they are available in three finishes. Standard tires are Pirelli P Zeros, 265/35 up front and 305/30 at the rear.

Inside, the 2024 DBS 770 Ultimate comes with lightweight sport seats trimmed in semi-aniline leather and Alcantara. Aston Martin's carbon-fiber-shell performance seat is available as an option, though it's an option we wouldn't recommend. Unless you have Fernando Alonso's snake hips and rock-hard muscles, the sharp outer edge will bruise your thigh every time you get in and out of the car. The 770 Ultimate also gets bespoke trim that's split with contrast colors linked to welt and stitching, along with a tailor-made strap and buckle badge with a laser-etched DBS 770 Ultimate logo on the center armrest. Carbon-fiber shift paddles are also standard.

You can amuse yourself for hours mixing and matching a nearly limitless number of exterior and interior color combinations for the DBS 770 Ultimate using Aston Martin's excellent configurator, but once you've finally settled on the look you want, the one thing you won't be able to do is place an order. Even if you have $400,000 burning a hole in your pocket, all 499 2024 Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimates—300 Coupes and 199 Volantes—have already been sold.