Whoopsy:
Took the Aston and drove up to Whistler. First time I get to open up the car.
It's not a super fast car, but fast enough. The clutch is surprisingly light, and the gearbox can be a bit more precise, the gates seems too tightly packed and I had to do each shift deliberately, missed 4th a couple times and went directly to 6th, same thing with 5th, went 6th to 3rd by mistake also. But overall the dogleg is fine, as the flipped pattern doesn't affect me, I don't mind the even gears are on top and odds gears are at the bottom.
This V12 is a completely different beast than my Ferrari V12s. Sounded totally different and reacts differently too.
The Ferrari begs to be revved mercilessly, it is happiest at the top of the rev range. Nothing matches the fantastic wail from the V12 at the top of the rev band.
The Aston is more calm, it's like a British gentleman in a suit, who is never hurried and who never runs and will at most walk briskly. It doesn't mind staying down low in the rev band, in fact, the glorious exhaust sounds the best down low, when the throaty sound is loudest.
1st gear is surprisingly long, quite useful for city traffic actually, no need to do a 1-2 shift in city driving like I do in the 911R. And talking about the R, I so wish that shifter is in the Aston, that would be a dream to use on the Aston dogleg. About my only knock on it right now.
Actually I lied, second knock would be the wonky infotainment system, it doesn't want to stay on, after 20-30mins it keep resetting itself and keep opening and closing the screen, sort of annoying but it's a British car, I never expect those to be perfect.
I only wish I had bought this thing sooner, it's very enjoyable to drive! Just like my other 2 manuals.
By coincidence, all 3 of my manual cars are together for the first time.
Don't worry, I was missing gears like mad the first 2-3 outings in the car. It's almost second nature to me now. The gearbox is definitely not nearly as precise or easy to use as a 911, but it's still a great load of fun
Managed to take a few more pictures from this weekend.