Road Trip Like James Bond in Aston Martin’s DB12

Aston Martin has been celebrating its 110th anniversary throughout this year. With more than a century under its very expensive belt, you’d think the automaker would’ve already served all of the luxury model types. Still, the experts out of Gaydon, England, managed to coin a first for the company this summer.

The DB12, which has a base price of US248,000, will arrive on the scene christened as not only Aston Martin’s but the world’s first “super tourer,” what the company defines as an elite, immaculately styled powerhouse built for long leisurely drives. While the DB line is recognised for its sophisticated, mature lines, the Super Tourer label stamped on the DB12 puts the focus on the interior cockpit surrounding its front seats with all of the essential luxury appointments.

While there is a back seat in a modern DB model, it’s there more or less for appearances and to make insurers happier. You might be able to fit a ventriloquist’s doll back there, but that’s about it. Practically speaking, this is an ultra-luxury two-seater. Inside the cabin wrapping around the snug, contoured leather seats, the owner finds the interior focused on the driving experience.

The infotainment screen is lowered and out of the driver’s direct eye line. The HUD is clean and centred for the operator’s frequent checks. The adjustable steering wheel offers oversize paddle shifters for confident flicks, and the gauge cluster is tightly arranged as it would be for a track car. Meanwhile, a new Bowers & Wilkins 15-speaker stereo system combined with impressive soundproofing keeps your music inside and the clumsy noises of a rude outside world at bay.

The adjustable steering wheel offers oversize paddle shifters for confident flicks. Aston Martin

The car’s DB9 or DB11 predecessors were just as pretty and equally capable, but neither earned that super tourer title. According to Simon Newton, Aston Martin’s director of vehicle performance, buyers drove that evolution toward this new identity.

“The market and brand expectation are for elevated performance in addition to refinement,” Newton says. “There’s keen interest in more extreme duality of purpose, such as increasing the breadth of capability whilst preserving the grand-touring character.”

The DB12 must offer supercar performance with its indulgent comfort. Newton insists his team met those expectations by focusing on refinement when the car is on the move to overcome the pavements imperfections—while keeping the feel of driving intact.

“The car needed to exude more dynamic capabilities,” he explains. “Our philosophy was to have a structurally stiffer chassis, which would help with comfort and dynamics, then tune the suspension for additional comfort with systems capable of controlling the body in sportier driving. Every control should be predictable and easy to use. Linearity of response, including steering, braking, and throttle, was key to making a refined car easy to drive fast.”

The DB12 can’t help but drive fast with an all-new, 671-horsepower V8 engine. The car builder informs the world it’ll do 0-60 mph in a tick north of 3 seconds and top out around 202 mph. While the car keeps its voice down while idling or cruising, it lets loose a roar when the driver puts a toe down to pass mere mortals along the roadways.

Those performance numbers should put gearheads at ease if they worried about Aston Martin thrills fading away with the company phasing out its largest engines in favour of more efficient V8 units. The V12 is headed into the sunset, but Aston Martin’s in-house tuned eight cylinders achieve power and acceleration in line with previous, heavier engines.

“The high-performance V8 engines are engineered to give the best balance of response, power, torque, and efficiency for any given Aston Martin platform,” Newton explains. “A V8 engine is more efficient and allows for flexibility to match powertrain characteristics to the product.”

The DB12’s engineers employ up-to-date turbocharger technology to achieve V12 power with less weight and more immediate response.

“With our expertise surrounding V8 engines, we are able to engineer the very best combinations of turbochargers, inlets, compression ratios, and camshafts, along with in-house engine calibration, for each and every application,” Newton adds.

With the power more than ample and readily on demand, Newton’s department needed to restrain it when the vehicle was in comfort travel mode over hill and dale.

“Some technologies were a prerequisite for performance, such as the tires and an advanced ESP [Environmental Response System],” he says. “We also invested in technologies which helped define the dual character of the DB12. For example, the dampers and suspension have a greater range of performance, allowing for comfort but also immediate control of reactive, powerful damping when needed for dynamic driving.”

A well-chosen test run through the hills above Monaco put the DB12’s dynamic capabilities to the test around hairpins and past lesser cars stubbornly unwilling to clear the way. Even the occasional glut of well-heeled traffic served a purpose—confirming the cabin seating ergonomics would cozily stand up to long-haul transport.

Any weaknesses remain mere quibbles. The centre console infotainment screen is small for cars at this technological level. However, the engineers at Aston Martin want very little to distract from the driving experience. The satellite navigation is touchy, but the DB12 has the ability to update its onboard software automatically, and Aston Martin should have those wrinkles well ironed out by the time the car heads out to its first buyers.

The designers here kept many of DB11’s lines and flair intact, while lowering the car’s profile and smoothing out the bonnet and haunches. Aston Martin

Finally, Penta’s test vehicle lacked a massage seat option. Admittedly, that would add weight to the machine, but it’s a feature that’s fair to expect in a grand touring, US$200,000-plus ride.

None of those minor complaints detract from the car’s beauty. The designers here kept many of DB11’s lines and flair intact, while lowering the car’s profile and smoothing out the bonnet and haunches. The final effect is unmistakable and eye-capturing.

Like its supercar and hyper-luxury competitors, Aston Martin will lean into hybrids and complete electrification in the near future. Though the automaker recently put its legendary V12 engines to rest, it must please driving enthusiasts everywhere to know that the V8 lives on in the DB12.

For decades, Australia has leaned into its reputation as the lucky country. But luck, as it turns out, is not an economic strategy.

What once looked like resilience now appears increasingly fragile. Beneath the surface of rising property values and steady headline growth, the Australian economy is showing signs of strain that can no longer be ignored.

Recent data paints a sobering picture. Australia has recorded one of the largest declines in real household disposable income per capita among advanced economies.

Wages have failed to keep pace with inflation, meaning many Australians are working harder for less. On a per capita basis, income growth has stalled and, at times, reversed.

And yet, on paper, things still look relatively solid. GDP is growing. Unemployment remains low. But that growth is increasingly being driven by population expansion rather than productivity.

More people are contributing to output, but not necessarily improving living standards.

That distinction matters.

For years, Australia’s economic success rested on a powerful combination: a once-in-a-generation mining boom, a credit-fuelled housing market, strong migration and a property sector that rarely faltered. Between 1991 and 2020, the country avoided recession entirely, building enormous wealth in the process.

But much of that wealth is tied to property. Around two-thirds of household wealth sits in real estate, inflated by leverage and sustained by demand. It has worked, until now.

The problem is the supply side of the economy has not kept up.

Housing supply is falling behind population growth. Rental vacancies are near record lows.

Construction firms are collapsing at an elevated rate. At the same time, massive infrastructure pipelines are competing with residential projects for labour and materials, pushing costs higher and delaying delivery.

The result is a system under pressure from all angles.

Despite near full employment, productivity growth has stagnated for years. In simple terms, Australians are putting in more hours without generating more output per hour. The economy is running faster, butgoing nowhere.

Meanwhile, government spending continues to expand. Public debt is approaching $1 trillion, with spending now accounting for a record share of GDP.

The gap between spending and revenue has been filled by borrowing for decades, adding further pressure to an already stretched system.

This is where the uncomfortable question emerges.

Has Australia become too reliant on a model driven by rising property values, expanding credit and population growth?

As asset prices rise, households feel wealthier and borrow more. Banks lend more. Governments collect more revenue. Migration fuels demand. The cycle reinforces itself.

But when productivity stalls and debt outpaces real income, the system begins to depend on constant expansion just to stay stable.

It is not a collapse scenario. But it is not particularly stable either.

Nowhere is this more evident than in housing.

The National Housing Accord targets 1.2 million new homes over five years, yet current completion rates are well below that pace. With approvals falling and construction costs rising, the gap between supply and demand is widening, not narrowing.

Housing is also one of the largest contributors to inflation, with costs rising sharply across rents, construction and utilities. Yet the private sector, from small investors to major developers, is struggling to make projects stack up in the current environment.

This brings the policy debate into sharper focus.

Tax settings such as negative gearing and capital gains concessions have undoubtedly boosted demand over the past two decades. But they have also supported supply. Removing them may ease prices briefly, but risks deepening the supply shortage over time.

That is the paradox.

Policies designed to make housing more affordable can, in practice, make the shortage worse if they discourage development. The optics may appeal, but the economics are far less forgiving.

It is also worth remembering that most property investors are not institutional players. The majority own just one investment property. They are, in many cases, ordinary Australians using real estate as their primary wealth-building tool.

Undermining that system without replacing it with a viable alternative risks unintended consequences, from reduced supply to higher rents and increased inflation.

So where does that leave Australia?

At a crossroads.

The country can continue to rely on population growth and rising asset prices to drive economic activity. Or it can shift towards a model built on productivity, innovation and sustainable growth.

The latter is harder. It requires structural reform, long-term thinking and political discipline.

But it is also the only path that leads to genuine, lasting prosperity.

The question is no longer whether Australia has been lucky.

It is whether it can evolve before that luck runs out.

Paul Miron is the Co-Founder & Fund Manager of Msquared Capital.

Road Trip Like James Bond in Aston Martin’s DB12

As housing drives wealth and policy debate, the real risk is an economy hooked on growth without productivity to sustain it.