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AMR V12 vs. AMR GT8 vs. AMR V8 Drag Race Is the Battle of Winged Aston Martins

Two days, two Aston Martin drag races—there must be something wrong with the universe because these British sports cars are usually nowhere to be seen whenever some cars line up on a deserted track for a bit of straight-line flat-out acceleration.
AMR V12 Vs AMR V8 Vs AMR GT8 - all-Aston Martin drag race 10 photos
Photo: CS Panda / YouTube screenshot
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There's a very good reason for that: they don't tend to perform all that well. The video linked in the paragraph above is probably the best example you can have, though others could be used as well. Imagine a Tesla Model X, for example—seeing that blobby ball of fat EV defeat the slim, sweet-sounding, V8-powered sports car would hurt on a different level.

And yet, these cars are not all that great at picking up speed off the line, at least not by modern standards. That's mostly because even if they do look like race cars—and the GT8 actually kind of is—they were meant more as front-mid-engine GTs that favor luxury and refinement over raw performance.

What you can see here is basically the entire Aston Martin Vantage family of the previous generation model. Well, excluding the Spider, that is. Two of the cars are powered by the 4.7-liter naturally aspirated V8 heavily used by the company, except in the standard V8 it makes 430 hp, whereas in the GT8 it gets an extra 10 hp. That, coupled with the dual-clutch automatic transmission and the lower weight, should, in theory, give the track-focused model an advantage.

The V12 Vantage, however, has a massive upper hand when it comes to power since its 6.0-liter engine puts out 595 hp. Like the GT8, the V12's body is also made mostly out of plastic and carbon fiber, substantially reducing its weight. However, like the plain V8, it also has a manual transmission, and this one's a dog-leg gearbox, making shifts even more problematic for those not used to this type of layout.

Well, since the man in the V12 is an experienced racing driver—and the owner of all three cars—that shouldn't really be a problem, so the V12 Vantage should walk over its opposition with relative ease. However, things are never as straightforward when carwow's Matt Watson is in the house and driving one of the cars.

Even though the two hosts of the channel give Mat the bottom choice in terms of performance—lower power, more weight, manual transmission—his vast experience in drag racing coupled with his sharp reaction time means he scores comfortable wins in the first two races. To make it interesting, they decide to make the third an all-or-nothing affair, so with everything back on the table, the stakes are high. Not going to spoil the result, but we can't help noticing the perfect echelon formation they finish the race in, which fits nicely with the Top Gun reference made at the start of the video.

(races start at 7:45)

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Editor's note: Sad thing to remember: a slightly modified Volkswagen Golf R would walk all over any of the three

About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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