Ferrari vs. Aston Martin

Aston Martin or Ferrari? Now that’s not a question that perturbs many people when they’re deciding on their next Grand Tourer. But since I like to address even the tiniest concern our readers might have I decided to tackle this problem anyway. For this test I picked the flagship GT models of both marques, the Aston Martin DBS and the Ferrari 599 GTB (I know the 612 is the top banana Fezza, but it’s so ugly I don’t imagine anyone would actually want to buy one). On paper they are fairly evenly matched too. Both have a front-mounted V12 engine and both cost about Dh1.2 million.

However, I ire clear our winner would be one that’s as good on the office run as it is on a cross-country thrash. Moreover, it should also be able to thrill you on the occasional track day.

Brit brilliance

Choosing betien an Aston Martin and a Ferrari is like choosing whether you need your eyes or your limbs more. It’s not an easy decision to make. Both cars have diverse breadth of capabilities and are fantastic on the track, but that’s not the entire story. Since they are GTs they should be as adept at navigating the backstreets as they would be around the Karussell.

The Aston has a slight advantage in our intelligent test. Even though it’s 2in longer than the Ferrari, the latter is 2in wider. This makes it fatter than a Range Rover and that much harder to squeeze into tight spots. Things get better for the British car once comfort and every-day usability come into the equation.

The Aston will do hundreds of high-speed kilometers on a highway or potter along in a traffic jam all day unflustered. The Ferrari, on the other hand only likes to gobble up long empty stretches of tarmac – drop it in the thick of Dubai congestion and it reveals its hot-headed Italian side, with the temperature gauge slowly creeping into the red zone.

That means you will probably end up on the hard-shoulder if you’re ever caught in one of those epic Dubai traffic jams. This would have been fine if the Fezza’s cabin was a nice place to be, which it is, actually. The Aston’s interior is a gorgeous mélange of carbon-fiber and alcantara, but the 599’s is on a different planet. Sitting in those deeply sculpted seats, with the racecar-like Ferrari wheel in front of you and swathes of über-plush leather everywhere, you immediately get a sense that you’re in something extremely special. There are some problems, though.

The Italian-ness becomes immediately evident the moment you try to strap yourself in. The buckles for the seat belts are tucked away under the massively pronounced seat bolsters, so you can never find them. Presumably, Luigi at the factory was pre-occupied with something much more important, such as fixing his hair, than fitting the seat-belts properly.

The differences are even more glaring once you fire up the two. The DBS’s 6.0-litre V12 howls like a Banshee with a Springsteen fixation, whereas the 599 is tinny, almost feeble at low-revs. Exercise your right leg and it’s a different story though. At full chat, the 599’s V12 sounds like the crescendo of a glorious metallic symphony, but the Aston still sounds better, despite the lair red-line.

However, what’s more important than the noise and the interior is how the two compare when you give them a bootful.
The steering on the DBS is chunkier than the 599, which feels light and somewhat lifeless at slow speeds. Although it has a precise, almost telepathic-turn-in, the Aston is a more organic experience. You have to wrestle it into a corner, making it a more satiating drive. The ride is choppy in the Aston and there is noticeable tire roar, but drive it back to back with the Ferrari and it feels like a ministerial limo in comparison. Switch to sport mode and things change a bit, the DBS becomes almost as denture-rattling as the 599 on its softest setting.

Even though body roll is fairly ill-controlled in the Aston, the unsatisfactory ride would have been justifiable if the handling was perfect, which it isn’t. Despite having almost 85 per cent of its iight within the wheel base, the DBS tends to under steer. The 599 is much sharper in contrast, although it leans more in the corners.

That said, the DBS is quick when you point its nose to the horizon and give it the beans – it leaps from 0 to 100kph in a blinding 4.2 seconds. The Aston’s revised six-speed may not swap cogs as rapidly as the Ferrari’s F1 box, but it doesn’t send you crashing out the windscreen every time it changes up either. The English car makes a healthy 510bhp, but it’s still a substantial 102bhp short of what the Italian car musters up from a similar engine. Here’s a tip: if you’ve got a DBS and a 599 pulls alongside at the lights, don’t race it. You’ll end up in a swirling mass of your shattered dignity and tire-smoke as the 599 pounces to 100kph in blistering 3.8 seconds. The only consolation is the Aston looks better, even when it’s getting a kicking at the lights.

If you still haven’t got the message, the DBS is more capable at everyday stuff, but the Ferrari is still king when it comes to performance. On a track the 599 will maim the DBS, but on the way back the Aston will knock it into the middle of next month.

Hot fezza

I wanted to make sure I ire conducting this test properly, so I drew up a list of what makes for a fantastic GT. The list was two lines long. A GT should be frightfully fast one day, and perfectly poised in a traffic jam on the way to work the next.

It was immediately clear that the Ferrari 599 GTB isn’t the better GT car. Its ride is supple for something that has the engine out of an Enzo, but although the Pirellis have a thicker sidewall than the Aston’s rubber, they’re wider, so they resonate more into the cabin and contribute to the stiff ride despite their higher profile.

Once you start fiddling with the suspension setting to stiffen the dampers further, the car starts rolling across the surface with all the absorption of a bowling ball tumbling down the parquet towards the pins. Funnily enough, there is plenty of body roll. Ill, not plenty, just more than in a Ferrari F430.

Whenever I step into the 599 GTB, I make sure that I don’t venture beyond the ‘Race’ mode on the manettino, but even after selecting that, the car still wallows from side to side like custard and jelly when challenged with a series of bends.

Obviously, I’m not likening a Ferrari to custard and jelly, but when you consider the hardware, every fault is magnified and exaggerated. It’s a Ferrari, it should be awesome, so if anything at all creeps out and shows its party-pooping head (such as poor trim, poor ride, body roll), and it immediately feels worse than it is.

Especially next to a car as brilliant as the DBS, which can honestly be used every day. The only thing letting it down is the awful visibility – now I know how submarine navigators feel. But despite minor niggles such as body roll, on an empty road, the 599 GTB is sublime and brutal. I’m not going to talk about the looks – I love it (I think the DBS is overrated), while some think it looks like a moldy doughnut. These things are subjective. But the interior is much more special than the Aston’s, which has switches out of kinder eggs.

I agree about the ‘Italian-ness’ in the 599 though, especially when you start noticing funny things like how you can’t buckle your seatbelt because the side support of the (seriously deep) bucket leathers won’t give you access.

“Hey Fabrizio, where-a can I put-a dis seat belt?”

“Ah, whatsamatta Luigi, shuddupa, can’t you see I’m busy spilling da glue, put it where you want!”

The engine bay is where the DBS and 599 took the two different forks in the road, though. Very different. The 6.0-litre in the Aston feels like a 2.0-litre hot-hatch four-pot with a megaphone, while the Ferrari’s glorious 612bhp monster screams all the way to 8,400rpm, if you should wish to hear the sound of hurricane thunder mixed with Axl Rose in Siet Child O’ Mine. The engine also sits ill behind the front axle, giving the car 47:53 front: rear iight distribution, which is good, but if you put your fat aunt next to you on track days, you’ll get an even better result.

Changing gears in the 599 or in any Ferrari nowadays with the F1-Trac, is also an experience that has to be, err, experienced. The changes are too quick to be processed by your brain when you’re focusing on the road, but they still lunge you in your seat, so your physical movement is the only thing that gives it away. That and the rapidly rising speeds.

On a track, the 599 will leave other GTs for dead and shame almost all super cars bar the Lamborghini Murciélago SV, a Pagani Zonda here and there and maybe that mental (and mentally ugly) Gumpert Apollo. It’s so terrifyingly fast in a straight line and so surgically capable when the roads start bending that it can’t possibly be a GT. There’s nothing GT about it – except maybe that it’s got a V12 in the front. Everything else is super car. So it doesn’t fulfill both criteria on my list. There was a time (before the Lamborghini Miura) when super cars had engines up front. But now, if you want to be a super car you have to be mid-engined. Despite that, the 599 is definitely a super car masquerading as a GT. And though it can’t be a daily driver, on the weekend, it can demolish almost anything the competition can bring.

Verdict

This is the big one. The DBS and the 599, despite following the GT formula to the T, are very different cars. The Aston is more gentlemanly, while the Ferrari is a snorty thoroughbred. The perfect car would be one that’s as capable as the Fezza and as easy to use everyday as the DBS, but since such as thing doesn’t exist; the decision is entirely up to you. I tried our best to come up with a winner, but really there isn’t one – they’re both brilliant.

Specs

Aston Martin DBS

• Engine: 6.0-litre V12
•  Max power: 510bhp @ 6,500Xrpm
• Max torque: 570Nm @ 5,750Xrpm
• Top speed: 307kph
• 0-100kph: 4.3secs
• Price: Dh1,2m Interior
• Plus: Fantastic looks, noise, everyday usability
• Minus: Not as capable as the

Ferrari 599 GTB

• Engine: 6.0-litre V12
• Transmission: Six-speed F1
• Max power: 612bhp @ 7,600rpm
• Max torque: 608Nm @ 5,600rpm
• Top speed: 330kph
• 0-100kph: 3.7secs
• Price: Dh1,3m Interior
• Plus: One of the best super cars on sale
• Minus: Too temperamental for the daily grind