Driving the new Aston Martin DB9

By Dan Lienert

updated 9:09 p.m. ET March 21, 2005

If you met Ulrich Bez in an emergency room, you would likely assume he was seeking treatment for a manic episode.

People in the auto business refer to Bez, the German chief executive of Ford Motor's Aston Martin subsidiary, as a madman. He talks constantly, and with unrelenting energy. In interviews, he often cuts the reporter off before the question is finished and begins his reply by nearly shouting (e.g., “Can you please speak about the exclusivity of Ast—" "EXCLUSIVITY [pause] is nothing without visibility”).

He also apparently drives like a maniac — a highly skilled motorist of a maniac with a doctorate in engineering.

Earlier this month, Bez drove Aston's new DB9 coupe on a twisty, open stretch of mountain roads outside of San Diego with John Walton, Aston's North American vice president, in the passenger seat. The two left San Diego at 9 a.m. and stopped for coffee at 10:30.

“I don't smoke or drink much, but at that moment I needed to do both,” Walton told us in San Diego, where we recently traveled to test the new car on the same route (see the slide show that follows for our driving impressions).

But Bez's energy is not directionless. In fact, it has one clear target: Porsche.

“We don't want to be Porsche,” said Walton — but Bez, who used to be the German automaker's head of new car development, wants to beat Porsche, not in sales but in driving dynamics.

“He reminded us from the day he arrived about the characteristics of a Porsche versus an Aston Martin,” said Walton. While Bez wants his company's cars to be as sporty as Porsche's, he told his team from the beginning, for example, that Aston would never outright ape Porsche by putting its engines in the rear of its cars.

But the new DB9 is an assault on Porsche — and all other world-class sports car manufacturers, for that matter. It takes Aston's credibility as a sports car builder to a new level and is one of the most exciting cars an automaker has ever produced. It also challenges the iconic styling of a vehicle like the Porsche 911 with drop-dead looks of its own.

Deliveries of the DB9 coupe began in the U.S. in December, and deliveries of the convertible version will begin in late May or early June. The waiting list for the convertible is already 18 months long. This year, the company expects to sell 800 DB9 convertibles in North America and 300 coupes. The coupe starts at $155,000, the convertible at $168,000.

According to Aston, buyers of several extremely impressive sports cars have switched to the DB9 — vehicles such as DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes-Benz SL-Class, the Jaguar XK8 and the 911. Some Bentley Continental GT owners have also swapped their new cars for the DB9 after finding the Bentley was less of a sports car than they had expected. (We must say the DB9 is indeed sportier, but the Continental is also one of the world's greatest cars. "Bet the Aston dealers are happy to flip that one," jokes a friend of mine.)

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