Aston Martin DBS Superleggera

A car ranked 82nd for power in a catalogue of 600 does not sound like the obvious headline until the rest of the numbers fall into place. It also sits 67th for top speed, yet only 217th for the sprint to 100 km/h. The Aston Martin DBS Superleggera asks to be read as a whole rather than through a single performance figure, because its position shifts depending on which measure matters most.

That wider view becomes more interesting when the engineering is set beside the catalogue. Just 90 of the 600 cars here use a V12, only 68 combine that layout with rear wheel drive, and only 16 pair a V12 with twin turbocharging. Within that already narrow group, the DBS Superleggera delivers 725 bhp and 900 Nm from a 5.2 litre engine, reaching 100 km/h in 3.6 seconds before continuing to a claimed 340 km/h. Those numbers explain why it rises so high for maximum speed while sitting in a more measured position for outright acceleration. The specification is not pulling in one direction. It is balancing several demanding objectives at once.

Its place in the collection is equally defined by context rather than extremes. Aston Martin contributes 28 cars to this catalogue, while the United Kingdom accounts for 160 of the 600. Even inside those sizeable groups, this model narrows the field through its particular combination of V12, twin turbocharging and rear wheel drive. Production reached 2,018 cars between 2018 and 2024. That means 152 of the 177 catalogued cars with known production figures are rarer, so scarcity exists, but it is measurable rather than exaggerated.

The financial picture follows the same pattern. A typical used value of £185,000 places it 192nd by price, making it more expensive than 408 cars in the catalogue without pushing into the very highest tier. Divided across its output, the cost works out at £255 per bhp, another reminder that the headline figure rarely tells the complete story.

Whether you would choose the coupé or the convertible cannot be answered by the data, and neither can the reason this particular mix of rankings feels so persuasive. The figures explain exactly where the DBS Superleggera stands. They cannot explain why this is the version of a V12 that you keep returning to when you scan your own garage.