… and push the pedal to the metal.
By Steve Wilson
Photography by Jim Fets
How would you respond to someone who told you to drive 100 miles per hour and slam on the brakes?
Laugh? Respectfully decline? Question the person’s sanity?
I reply with an incredulous “What?” (punctuated with a nervous laugh) when my instructor at the Aston Martin Performance Driving Course gives me those instructions.
“I’ll give you $50 if you can break off the brake pedal,” he continues. “I want you to slam it that hard.”
Several images — each bad — race through my mind. Quickly, though, I regain my senses. Remembering my instructor is a trained professional, who would never endanger me or the car (not to mention himself), I acquiesce, acting on the only motivational tool at my disposal: pure blind faith.
Getting the Aston Martin V8 Vantage up to 100 mph on the three-lane straightaway is a snap. Acting on my passenger’s instructions, I change lanes, and, taking a deep breath and gripping the steering wheel with all my might, I indeed try to send the brake pedal crashing through the floorboard.
Nothing happens. Rather nothing bad happens. Remarkably, the car comes to a stop in short order and gently at that. No skidding or swerving. Neither of us bounces against our seat. I’ve had much rougher stops at traffic lights in my suburban community.
I experienced a few other white-knuckle moments while participating in the Aston Martin Performance Driving Course at the Michigan Proving Ground, a 3,880-acre private testing facility near Romeo, Michigan, a small town in the rolling, wooded hills about 50 miles north of Detroit. In addition to the Michigan site, Aston Martin also stages driving courses at the Lommel Proving Ground in Belgium and the Millbrook Proving Ground in England.
My tense moments notwithstanding, the mission of the instructors is not to blow the cholesterol from your arteries. All the blame for heart-pounding moments rests squarely on the cars — high-end, high-performance machines that are as beautiful as they are powerfully nimble. The three cars in the line — the V8 Vantage, a two-seat sports car; and two V12-powered touring/sports cars, the DB9 and Vanquish S — positively purr at speeds far exceeding 120 mph and effortlessly eat up winding roads at an exhilarating clip.
BUILT FOR JUST A FEW
If you haven’t seen one on the street, don’t feel as if you’re alone. Carrying six-figure retail prices, Aston Martins are as exclusive as they look. Throughout its 93-year history, the Ford-owned company has sold just 30,000 cars — a shockingly low number caused primarily by a painstaking production process including aerospace materials and hand-crafting. (For instance, the quad-cam, 32-valve engine of the V8 Vantage is individually assembled in Germany, but the car is built in the United Kingdom, and leather used for seats is unique to each car. Leftover leather is simply thrown away.)
Considering the exclusivity of cars, as well as their elegant, yet muscular, lines, it should come as no small wonder that James Bond has employed various Aston Martin models to elude henchmen in many 007 movies, including the 2006 film Casino Royale.
Most Aston Martin owners, however, never drive like Bond. Restraint behind the wheel is understandable given the real-life concern for bodily harm, not to mention the cost of traffic tickets, body work, and so on. Because a vast majority of drivers wisely do not push their cars to the limit, Aston Martin created its driving course.
The one-day course lasts about seven hours, during which instructors work one-on-one with students, directing them through a wide variety of situations: straight-line acceleration and braking; hairpin turns; steep hills dotted with blind curves; wet and slippery conditions; and, for sheer fun, flat-out speed.
The goals are to teach owners how to enjoy their cars even more, as well as to knock the socks off those thinking about purchasing an Aston Martin. (A prospective customer, my instructor tells me, called his Aston Martin dealer during the lunch break and said, “You know that car I picked out. Go ahead and order it.”)
“We don’t want drivers to be afraid [of their car]. We want them to have a strong affinity for the car,” my instructor explains. “We also want them to learn the performance capabilities of the car and how best to use them safely.”
For this student, I don’t know enough to be afraid, so the day is a nonstop joy ride even before I push the ignition button. When I first laid eyes on my car for the day, the V8 Vantage, I was reminded of the Winston Churchill quote that goes something like, “There’s something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.”
The same goes for a select few sports cars, the Vantage definitely being one. Stunning from any angle, its bold curves and tapered straight lines make it appear both muscular and agile. Introduced in late 2005, the Vantage is regarded by the automotive press as a competitor to the Porsche 911, yet Aston Martin prefers to describe it as an “alternative” to the 911.
The view from the comfortable driver’s seat is just as impressive. The raised stitching on the leather seats plays nicely against the high-tech gleam of the gauges, the sound system, and satellite navigation screen. One also is drawn to the details. For instance, the tachometer and speedometer move in opposite directions so as not to cover gauges, and the seat adjustment buttons are within easy reach on the side of the middle console. As you’d expect, the back storage area is far from large, but it’s big enough to accommodate a golf bag and clubs.
WORRIES IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR
My affinity for the car instantly blossoms into infatuation when I push the ignition button and hear the gurgling growl of the 380-horsepower engine. As I ease the Vantage out of the garage and into the bright sunshine of a beautiful late-summer day, I’m struck by another emotion, an uncomfortable foreboding. I suddenly realize I’m at the controls of a vehicle that costs as much as my house! I think, What if I wreck this thing? Possibly because the car feels so solid, the health of my instructor and me takes a back seat to my concern for the car.
Trying to speak calmly, I ask my passenger if there have been any accidents. He tells me what I want to hear, saying there haven’t been any accidents and that, in 2005, the first full year of the course, instructors gave 60 lessons. My mind eased, I begin working through the six-speed transmission and leave my feeling of dread in the rearview mirror.
The course comprises six stages that build in difficulty and speed, requiring intense concentration and taxing both the body and mind. Fortunately, the hard work of endless braking, turning, and shifting is offset by the stellar performance of the car. A joy to drive, it’s lithe and responsive, effortlessly compensating for my mistakes. When I take a turn too fast, the rock-solid suspension shoulders the burden. When I have to slow down quickly, the brakes do the work. When I need a burst of speed, it’s as if the Vantage says, “Bring it on.”
Each stage has its appeal, but my favorites are the last two — the hill road course and high-speed oval. The road course demands undivided attention and respect. Long and winding, it’s distinguished by breathtaking changes in elevation and sharp curves inconveniently situated just over the crest of hills. In other words, dreaded blind curses.
Thank goodness the instructor is riding shotgun and giving a running commentary on where to go and what to do.
“Straight-line brake before this curve,” he says. “Now downshift. Steady acceleration through the curve. Move over to the left to take a straight line into the next curve.”
If not for him, I would never have dreamed of screaming 60 mph in fourth gear up a steep hill and not being able to recall if the curve at its crest went right or left.
The day culminates in a crescendo — several pedal-to-the-metal runs around the five-mile oval, which, to put its amazing length in context, is twice as long as the course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Not surprisingly, it stands clearly as the No. 1 attraction.
“After the high-speed oval, one guy said, ‘I’ll never go 170 in my Aston Martin,’” my instructor relates as we make our way to the vaunted track. “He had a smile from ear to ear.”
The top-of-the-line Vanquish S doesn’t break a sweat going 170, while that insane speed pushes the Vantage to its limit. For the life of me, I fail to get the Vantage above 120, even though it feels more like 70.
In retrospect, I don’t regret topping out at 120 since I shattered my personal land-speed record by at least 20 mph. Plus, taking the course was an exhilarating experience, probably a once-in-a-lifetime one.
Am I a better driver now? I like to think so. Will I ever drive such an expensive, well-built machine again? Maybe not. At least I have this: When I drive winding roads at home, I can still feel the thrill of driving the V8 Vantage. Every time, I’m grinning ear to ear.
Steve Wilson now can hit the apex of curves and knows what Dynamic Stability Control actually does.
EXPERT TIPS
Instructor Sal Gusmano of the Aston Martin Performance Driving Course offers solutions to common driving mistakes.
NEGOTIATING CURVES: “To keep the vehicle balanced and in control, we teach braking in a straight line [before entering curves]. It is the most effective way to slow down. A lot of times people go through a corner too fast and start stabbing the break. That is the worst thing they can do.”
TIRE PRESSURE: “Tire pressure is one of the most neglected things. Some tires today have heavy sidewalls and can have only 15 pounds of pressure and still look relatively inflated. [Low pressure] causes the vehicle to be unstable, plus you’re wearing out the tires. You’re taking months if not years off of them by running them on low pressure. It is very dangerous.”
LOOK AHEAD: “It’s a common fault to look too close to the front of the vehicle. Wherever you look, usually your hands follow, so you end up steering in that direction. We teach students to look as far ahead as possible so as not to be surprised by the next curve or corner, or if something’s on the road.”
SMOOTH SAILING: “Three things we talk about with students other than line of sight are smooth throttle, smooth braking, and smooth steering applications. The reason being, we want to keep the car as balanced as possible. The smoother you are allows you to pick up on the subtleties of the vehicle.”