We haven’t even got to the bottom of the hill for our hard charge up it, and Aston Martin’s Matt Becker has already stolen three neat slides from this Vantage GT12.
He always makes drifting look easy, but the GT12 certainly seems ready to play, too. As you’d hope given its mix of 592bhp and 1565kg, which yields a power-to-weight of 378bhp-per-tonne.
Besides show-boating for fellow Festival-goers, Becker also talks about his first six months at Aston Martin, which followed more than two decades at Lotus.
‘I still love the company’, he says of his former employer, but ‘I’ve been re-energised by joining Aston Martin’. Where he now has the task of co-developing a range of entirely new models.
‘I wanted to leave my mark on another car before I finish,’ he says of his move from Norfolk to Gaydon. He’ll be leaving his mark on more than one.
Besides having an input into the chassis settings of this limited edition, 100-off Vantage GT12 - by getting it to ride better - Aston boss Andy Palmer has lately increased the scope of Becker’s vehicle attribute engineering role beyond the chassis, to take in the car’s entire dynamic character including noise, vibration and harshness.
Noise is not something this GT12 is short of, its V12 firing blasts of adrenaline-boosting rort through its exhausts whenever Becker tickles the throttle. Curiously, it doesn’t sound overdone except on start-up, when your neighbours might think they’re hearing the opening salvo of a military takeover.
Between an assortment of wanton hill drifts, Becker alludes to the clear character definition Palmer has given the new range of gestating Astons, and is clearly enjoying work with a company that though far from budget-rich, nevertheless has the funds to develop models that are truly new.
On the run back down the hill several spectators give Becker some very pointed applause, having clearly enjoyed seeing the GT12’s extravagant skating of curves.
It was even more exciting being on-board of course, and even better to hear about the positive impetus Aston is enjoying right now.
Becker has gathered a highly talented bunch of engineers around him, some ex-Lotus, some from Jaguar Land Rover – that’s promising news for the new-era Astons.
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via AGYA
