Aston Martin DB12 Volante 2025 review – Britain’s Ferrari Roma Spider rival

The open-top GT market is an odd one. It thrives where the fixed-roof counterparts that such models are derived from flounder, so informing the unlikely importance of the Aston Martin DB12 Volante, alongside the new Vantage Roadster and coming Vanquish Volante. These are cars for which customers – and profits – multiply by a sizable factor. Coupes are cool, convertibles make cash, and everyone knows Aston could do with some of that.

In theory the DB12 Volante is in a prime position to offer the ultimate combination of all the desirable qualities of such a car – as beautifully appointed and refined as a Bentley Continental GT, with the driving dynamism of a Ferrari Roma Spider and oodles more elegance than both put together. Does the reality live up to that lofty expectation?

Engine, gearbox and technical highlights

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The Volante mirrors the DB12 Coupe in terms of its technical appointment, with a Mercedes-AMG 4-litre twin-turbo V8, puffed up with some great British performance enhancers for a 671bhp and 590lb ft. That sends power to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox and electronic limited-slip differential. 

Structure alternations meanwhile were minimal, the DB12’s already exhaustive programme of stiffening and refinement compared to the DB11 executed with the Volante in mind. It’s slightly stiffer at the rear to account for the extra 90kg the roof mechanism adds, and that’s about it. Speaking of the roof, Aston Martin is very proud of the eight-layer ‘k-fold’ roof that folds to a mere 260mm stack height in 16 seconds, or fully deploy in just 14 seconds, all at speeds of up to 31mph.

Removing the roof takes away an element of the DB12’s elegance, with the coupe’s distinctive buttresses ditched to make room for the eight-layer fabric roof. This creates the illusion of a smaller cabin area and a longer rear deck, disrupting the previously cohesive design. 

Roof down, the real estate of bodywork behind the cabin looks vast following its redesign to accommodate the roof whole, and you’d need to dislike anyone you invite to sit behind you, as rear passenger space is even tighter than the coupe’s already cramped rear confines. The boot has shrunk, too, making weekends away a game of grand-master packing. Perhaps that’s what the rear seats are best used for.

Performance, ride and handling

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• Platform stiffness impressive for a convertible
• Lacks those last most illusive degrees of control at pace
• Doesn't quite settle down as a GT should

What you would expect from a car with an AMG-sourced 671bhp V8 is exactly as wished for. There is a colossal amount of performance and the Volante certainly doesn’t disappoint. Legislation has all but silenced the powertrain to a muted rumble, but its performance remains more supercar than grand tourer. 

While its eight-speed ZF auto is well mapped to the V8’s torque delivery when in GT mode and with the transmission left in auto, the pick up when you need to pass something slower isn’t as sharp as you perhaps might anticipate, requiring you to pull on the left-hand paddle to stir the turbos and encourage the Volante to get on with it. Best to give the central drive mode control a confident twist to engage Sport, select manual for the gearshifts and soften the dampers back to ‘GT’. It’s a sweet spot the open-top DB12 enjoys operating in, the powertrain’s responses meeting your expectations and the car demonstrating that a large proportion of the coupe’s ‘super tourer’ DNA remains within.

Stretch the 4-litre motor to its peak and the Volante feels every part of the supercar Aston Martin claims it to be, the performance stepping beyond anything the incoming CEO’s old company car could deliver in terms of outright speed, although still some way off that of Ferrari’s feral Roma. But… this is not where the Volante likes to play. As with its coupe brother, the DB12 becomes confused when pushed hard and asked to roll its sleeves up. 

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While the steering remains perfectly linear, direct and precise (you wouldn’t know there was any structural weakness from the roof being ditched) the rest of the chassis can’t maintain the momentum. Across too many surfaces it can become unstuck when asked to manage multiple inputs through a corner. You can have the Volante balanced and poised through a turn only for it to sow a seed of doubt as the dampers encounter a compression and the chassis tenses up around you and becomes unsettled. 

As with the coupe, the Volante is far more rewarding at a calmer pace, even more so with the roof open and the English countryside brought inside. Build a flow and find a rhythm that suits you and matches the car and the miles glide by without a care in the world. The suppleness returns to the chassis, the body more controlled, the reactions more prescribed and predictable. 

It allows you to settle into the fine ergonomics but still maintain enough engagement to have a connected driving experience all of the time, rather than one you can disconnect from at will, such as in, I don’t know, a Conti GT. 

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It would benefit from a more compliant ride, one that didn’t feel like the tyres on its 21-inch wheels were over-inflated and fighting with the surface rather than absorbing it. And when you do venture through the drive modes, the differentiation between GT and Sport and then Sport and Sport+ feels too minimal, the modes providing a tiny variation on a theme rather than a clear distinction.

But like the majority of cars thus equipped, the Volante doesn’t need modes and would be a better car if its engineers were allowed to focus on a single on-point, core setting rather than trying to find three variants that only transpire to deliver an automotive no man’s land. This isn’t an Aston Martin issue, it’s an industry-wide one, but cars such as the Volante highlight such issues brighter still.

‘There’s some confusion to the DB12 Volante, like it’s not quite sure on what merits it wants to primarily trade. Driven at pace the engine’s personality doesn’t match its brutal performance and the chassis never quite develops the kind of confidence-inspiring dialogue with the road beneath it that you revel in observing. Then, when you wind it back, there’s a freneticism to the ride and stance that never quite eases. It’s as if the car wants you to re-grow horns and get stuck in again. It is a jack of both trades but a master of neither.’ – Ethan Jupp, evo web editor.

Interior and tech

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• Huge leap forward in quality and tech
• A few niggles to iron out
• Back seats most useful for luggage

From the driver’s seat, the look and feel is very current-day Aston Martin, with sweeping interior architecture, much cleaner and clearer integration of switchgear and controls, and ergonomics that eradicate the DB11’s feeling of you being shoe-horned into a cabin that still managed to make you feel a great distance away from the car’s extremities. 

Unlike some convertibles, with its fabric roof closed the Volante feels no less spacious inside than the coupe, and seems as capacious as the square-edged Conti GT without you feeling like the only person sitting in a cathedral. 

Aston Martin’s new TFT instrument cluster and infotainment system is a welcome step up from what went before, too, but it’s not without its faults. The core instrument dials are just on the correct side of being the right size, but the new HMI screen controls, as in the coupe, are too small to operate when on the move, the screen’s font size hard to focus on and the touchscreen controls requiring too much attention. 

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It’s at odds with the beautifully damped and tactical controls for the air-conditioning, drive modes, roof and windows. Then when you lower the roof and the sun hits the screen you’ve little hope of being able to see anything on it to adjust anyway. Yes, it’s an improvement on what went before, but it’s an area that still needs a great deal of work. 

As does isolating the squeaks from the rear of the cabin, where the roof, the trim for the roll-over bar cover and the rear seats are in constant conversation with each other as they rub together and rub you up the wrong way, especially when the roof is closed. These are the details you can expect new CEO Adrian Hallmark will have already picked up on after his half-a-dozen years enjoying the silence of Bentley interiors regardless of the body style. Roof up, you wouldn’t expect as much wind noise around the header rail from a car carrying a £200k+ basic price tag either.

‘The DB12 Volante’s cabin is a world away from the DB11 it replaces – an immeasurable improvement. There are still some HMI tweaks needed and a few quality issues to be addressed, but it’s beautifully designed and for the most part expensively tactile. It does feel quite claustrophobic with the roof up, mind.’ – Ethan Jupp, evo web editor.

Price and rivals

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It is an achingly elegant car, the DB12 Volante, one that when driven to its strengths is as indulging and beguiling as any you care to mention that it competes with. For all the detail that has been lavished on the Ferrari Roma Spider’s powertrain and chassis and all the luxury poured into Bentley’s Continental GT Convertible, the DB12 Volante sits between the two. If it chased less of the Italian’s performance and took inspiration from its British rival’s confidence in focusing on the calmer aspect of open-top motoring, the Aston would genuinely offer the best of both. 

For now, like the DB12 coupe, the Volante requires polishing in some key areas – more consistent dynamics and delivery of the engine’s performance, redesigned HMI screens (Apple CarPlay Ultra is on the way) – all of which are within the grasp of those who call Gaydon home, and in Adrian Hallmark they have a new boss with the know-how to apply what’s needed to turn a good car into a great one.

As perverse as it sounds, the £199,500 asking price of the DB12 Volante looks good value. On looks alone it’s a car that can carry its price with confidence. Factor in the quality of the fit and finish, the materials and the way it drives and Aston Martin’s latest Volante has a great deal going for it. 

It also undercuts Ferrari’s Roma Spider by more than £10,000, although subjectively it lacks the cachet of that car’s badge, and objectively its dynamic sparkle at the limit. Splitting the two would come down to you being an Aston Martin or Ferrari guy or gal. Soon, too, Ferrari will bring the Roma and Roma Spider’s replacements to bear.

Against Bentley’s £225k Continental GT Convertible, the Gaydon-built car has the Crewe icon licked. It looks sleeker, more modern and desirable and in spite of recent enhancements to Crewe’s dynamic appointment, it drives with more clarity and quality too. This is also the first Aston Martin that can go stitch to stitch with Bentley's elegant interior. 

Maserati’s GranCabrio undercuts all of the above by some margin, starting at £169,585. While it’s a fine GT car and one we’d happily spend many a day covering big miles in, it lacks a bit of specialness and the sense of occasion of its rivals.

Perhaps the DB12’s greatest rival is a car with which it shares a badge and production line. The new Vantage Roadster manages to balance being a more focused sports car with grand touring talents to almost match the DB12, the compromises easier to make sense of given its talents at speed. It sounds better, is prettier and cheaper, too.

Aston Martin DB12 Volante specs