[Auto] Aston Martin DB12 vs Maserati GranTurismo Trofeo: the big super GT test

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aserati and Aston Martin. Say what you like about the cars, but the brand names are to die for. They’re almost enough by themselves. Tell people you own a Maserati and they’re thinking Sixties St Tropez and cocktails on a shipping magnate’s yacht. For Aston just one word: Connery.

Well, you hope that’s what they’re thinking. Residual retro cool is why you bought the car after all. And these marques do carry it off better than any other. They might be tourers at heart, but the essence of them is this: they’re cars to arrive in. Final yard cars. Name me anything that sweeps up to a kerb better than a grand tourer. Or departs from one.

 

Because you’re not trying too hard, are you? Drive a grand tourer and you clearly have other interests. You want to get places with speed and style, but raffishly, not forcefully. You haven’t gone for the car that has your bum brailling the tarmac and an engine histrionically shoving you in the back. Here the engines lead, placed under long, athletic bonnets, they're there to be effortlessly charismatic.

About that. V12s, you're hoping. But this is where the GT dream butts up against the stark reality of life in 2024. Most likely question you’ll be asked while driving one of these, “Is it hybrid?” People used to ask about fuel economy, now they query electric credentials. I don’t know which is worse, standing beside the DB12 and telling people there’s no e-assistance at all, or lounging against the Maserati and having to admit that you could have had an electric one, but chose to burn fossil fuels instead.

This is the GranTurismo Trofeo. It uses the twin-turbo Nettuno 3.0-litre V6 as seen in the MC20 supercar, but with the histrionics toned down: 542bhp instead of 621. You want more speed? Should’ve had the 750bhp tri-motor Folgore, shouldn’t you? That way you could have had 0–62mph in 2.7secs bragging rights over the Aston as well. You may not be able to have a V12 in the DB12 (which upsets our sense of order) but 671bhp from a twin-turbo V8 is plenty.

 

Both deliver on the GT promise of effortless progress. They whisk up to motorway speeds without apparent work, shuffling lightly and easily through gears, turbos whistling gently, revs calm, voices muted. Perhaps just as well, as the Maserati doesn’t sing a particularly pretty song. The old GranTurismo had an absolute Pavarotti of a V8 that sang through the revs, but had to work hard and was comparatively short. Now things are reversed. All things considered I think I prefer the way things were before. It had more charisma.

Aston Martin, as it does in the DBX and Vantage, borrows its V8 from Mercedes. No problem with that, it’s just about the best there is. I was sceptical whether the DB12 needed this much power, but what it means is you always have more in reserve. Always. You don’t need it, and at low speeds you can’t have it, because that much power easily overcomes the grip of a pair of 325-width Michelins. But once up and running the Aston is deeply, forcefully fast. From 60–130mph it’s a second quicker than a Ferrari Purosangue, almost two ahead of its rival here. Quicker than either an Audi R8 V10 Plus or Taycan Turbo S. Supercar speed.

 

The GranTurismo is four-wheel drive. It’s smooth until you get to tight corners where it tries its best to be rear drive, realises it needs the fronts to help out and then overdoes the shift forward a little. But in everyday use it’s helpful. The engine is less stifled, you can be more carefree coming off roundabouts. It’s plenty fast enough, but the performance feels that bit lighter weight, less muscular than the Aston’s.

The same is true of the whole car. It’s taller, with a deeper glass area, it’s less bespoke and special inside but also significantly larger. It’s more GT, less sports car. Four adults will fit more easily here than in any other luxury tourer bar the Conti GT, the hatchback sized boot will swallow their gear with ease. Eager kids will slot briefly into the back of the DB12, but emerge wincing. As will you when you inevitably bang your head on the intrusive bootlid while stooping to retrieve their bags. 

As a car to walk out to and jump in, the GranTurismo is less intimidating, the view out is more open, the controls sit lower around you, the ambience less oppressive. The red in here is beyond startling, and you’ll need to get to grips with screens – everything is buried in them, even the headlight controls. This is blindingly obvious, but there’s no tactility to touchscreens, less sense you’re interacting with the car.

The Aston experience is more personal partly because you have physical buttons – mainly for the dynamic controls, but also to disable lane keep and so on. These are all mounted on the high plinth between driver and passenger and although it sounds daft because they’re still just electric shortcuts to operations in the same way a screen is, they do enhance your sense of connection with the car. You’re less screen dependent here. Just as well as the graphics and icons are quite small.

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