First Drive: 2021 Aston Martin Speedster Review

What does the name ‘Speedster’ mean to you? For many, maybe even most, it will evoke an image of a 1950’s Porsche 356 with a stripped down body and raked back windscreen. Back then the Speedster was actually a budget model, the brainchild of US Porsche importer Max Hoffman who exhorted the factory to produce a car to combat the threat of the British sportscars from Triumph, Austin-Healey and Jaguar, and a new one from a thing the Chevrolet Corvette. At $3,400 in 1954 the 356 cost $400 more than even an XK140. So what about one that was lighter so it was quicker over the all-important quarter mile, sleeker so it was more attractive and priced below $3,000? That ought to make its mark. And it did: in that moment both the Porsche Speedster and its accompanying legend was born.

But the name was not new even then. Auburn had used it before the war, Studebaker briefly in 1955 while Porsche has sporadically wheeled it out ever since for limited edition run-out models of the G-series Carrera, 964, 997 and 991 series of 911. But this is the very first Aston Martin to use the name. But late to the game though the British brand is, no one can accuse it of a half-hearted execution.

Just 88 examples will be sold, each for £765,000 including VAT but not including any personal tailoring tweaks any owner will probably be considering. The production number alone make it one of the most exclusive new cars of the modern era. Among modern hypercars you have to look back a dozen years to the 77-off Aston One-77 to find one built in smaller numbers.

Speedsters by their very nature and, some might say, even their name, tend to come with a slightly retro vibe, and the Aston Speedster is no different. The engineering may be cutting edge and the body materials almost entirely carbon-fibre, but the style itself evokes memories of an age when sportscars were simple, back to basics machines. Or at least the best ones were.

The clearest design inspiration for the Speedster is the CC100 concept produced by Aston Martin in 2013 to celebrate its centenary. Although unrelated under the skin, the high waist, roofless, screen-free approach has been carried over, as has the long bonnet, short tail, double bubble canopy behind the seats and the central spine running through the car.

Further back than that Aston Martin’s designers cite the 1950s DBR1 racing car which won Le Mans at its fourth attempt in 1959, also securing the World Sports Car Championship that year, the first internationally important title the brand was to claim. Even earlier than that, there are meant to be elements of the 1953 DB3S design language incorporated into its mid-section.

In terms of engineering, to achieve those classic long nose, short tail proportions, Aston’s engineers started the project with a brief to marry the front end of a DBS Superleggera with, from the A-pillars rearward, the structure and underpinnings of a Vantage.

This hybrid approach results in a car with a bespoke wheelbase somewhere between that of a DBS and Vantage with the V12 engine of the former married to the eight speed automatic gearbox of the latter, mounted in traditional Aston fashion between the rear wheels. There is however a small catch here: the Vantage uses the old ZF75HP gearbox while the DBS has the later, ZF90HP transmission, with a maximum torque handling capacity of 900Nm (666lb ft), rather than 750Nm (555lb ft). As a result the V12 has had to be reined in just a bit, its power dropping from 725PS (533kW) to 700PS (515kW) and torque by around 150Nm (111lb ft) to protect the Vantage box.

In terms of suspension and brakes, it’s all based on the DBS, which means relatively soft spring rates and carbon ceramic discs ensuring that even at the documented top speed of 193mph, there’s plenty of safe stopping power available.

It may look like a car that’s going to rip your head off the first time a toe touches the accelerator, but the Speedster really isn’t like that at all. Indeed the only threat to the structural integrity of your noggin will likely be caused either by the onrush of wind in the screenless cabin or a stone deftly lobbed by the rear wheel of an HGV. In either event, a helmet is advisable. And if you’re worried about drawing attention to yourself, you’re probably in the wrong car anyway.

To operate, the Speedster differs in no important way to either of the cars from which it is derived so while you might feel a trifle strange climbing aboard such a device, once installed it functions in a reassuringly familiar way.

It feels quick but not rabid like its closest homegrown rival, the nearly half as rare and almost twice as expensive McLaren Elva. Indeed because the Speedster uses the underbody strengthening all open aluminium monocoques require to maintain rigidity, the Speedster is not only less powerful than a standard DBS coupe, it’s a little heavier too. So while it is fast, really fast, the Speedster lacks that somewhat unhinged quality of the world’s fastest street machines, and there will be many reading this concluding that’s no bad thing.

Nor is it any kind of track day tool. Indeed despite launching it from its base at Silverstone’s Stowe Circuit, Aston Martin made it clear from off that the Speedster was for road use alone. And you soon see why when you drive it. Although the suspension has been tuned to suit the Speedster’s individual needs, it’s still very much a touring set up. The ride is very compliant, there is quite a lot of body roll should you try to hustle it through a corner and while the steering is good and the handling as secure and accurate as you’d expect of any Aston, if I may use a slightly time-worn cliche, for all its pugnacious appearance the Speedster is far more cruiser than bruiser.

Though there are clearly elements of the Speedster’s cabin that are derived from one or more of Aston’s more conventional models, there’s more than enough that’s new in here to create a unique and, in many ways, compelling driving environment.

The central spine that divides where you sit from your passenger’s space is completely successful, creating almost the aura of a single seater. The cockpit is snug, intimate and exciting. No wonder the press materials make more than passing references to the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 fighter jet.

But it’s the detailing as much as the overall styling of the car that marks this out as the work of Aston Martin’s Q personal commissioning department. There’s not much point launching into specifics about individual cars because at this level they’ll all be different and dictated by the limits of the owner’s imagination far more than the extent of an options sheet, but I particularly liked the way carbon-fibre, brushed aluminium and the finest Caithness leather had been harmonised inside the ‘DBR1’ specification car I drove with its Aston Martin green paint and white roundels.

Despite looking like something from another world, the Speedster is no kind of technological tour de force. Instead the team has concentrated on getting the basics right, such as a highly effective heating system and thermo-nuclear seat warmers.

Just don’t expect that tiny deflector in front of your face to somehow miraculously solve the problem of driving without a windscreen. Shorter drivers will be better served by it, taller occupants barely at all and if you’re one of those curious types who believes the amount of fun a car provides can be expressed by how enjoyable it is to drive multiplied by the number of times it makes you feel inclined to drive it, something more substantial would have been preferable.

There will be those who dismiss the Speedster without a second glance, the first being enough to convince them that the car is for posers with more money than sense. But even if that somewhat binary view were correct, we’re not here to judge the customer, just the product and how well it does the job for which it was designed. We could be reviewing a Tuk Tuk and the criteria would be no different.

And more than anything else, that job is to hoover up the attention from every street corner, wherever it goes. And it did a pretty comprehensive job of that even in Dadford, so imagine what it would be like in Monte Carlo. Or Palm Springs.

Yes, it’s an entirely recreational car, the lack of any weather equipment, windscreen or much carrying capacity sees to that, but if you wanted to create a sense of occasion, there’d be few better at it than this.

But it wouldn’t take much to provide it with even greater appeal. Slightly better protection from the wind, a sharper set up and the chance to really hear the all-too-often drowned by the wind V12’s voice would transform what is an undoubtedly entertaining curio, into a more usable, enjoyable and formidable driving machine.