Aston Martin V12 Speedster review

I’m not sure the V12 Speedster really has an ‘inside’. Though, you do feel very cocooned, with the high door tops and the carbon sinew rudely butting in between you and your brave passenger.

The basic architecture in here looks like it’s come from an Aston Martin Vantage – the buttons and heater dials and so on – but there’s lots that’s new and bespoke. Expensive-looking carbon fibre panels form the door inserts, punctured by waxy leather strapping for the door releases.

Because the new doors sport no buttons to operate the non-existent windows and the door mirrors, the latter’s adjustment controls have migrated to a touch-panel at the foot of the centre console. Works well. Happily, all the other switchgear has a tactile click to it. Useful when your fingers go numb.

The metal vents are new. They look much more expensive than the ones you get in a normal Aston. The leather-strapped storage pocket is a lovely touch. So are the thick alloy fixtures and fittings that give the car a real military-tough feel inside.

The infotainment is reheated Mercedes leftovers with an Aston skin. That’s no bad thing – the click-wheel operated system is easier to use than the latest Benz touchscreen, though the graphics are dated – and a slice of the screen is blocked by the cockpit spar. I guarantee you won’t care. You won’t need the nav – you’re only ever doing short loops for a jolly in this thing, and even a CIA-trained bloodhound couldn’t hear the Bluetooth phone connection beyond parking speed.

Okay, so what about practicality? No, really. Just because there’s no weather or insect shield, no security, no glovebox and no door pockets, doesn’t mean the Speedster couldn’t be deployed for the family camping holiday.

Under the rear buttresses there is indeed a boot, which any passing miscreant can see straight into through the glass humps. Don’t leave your Faberge eggs and Heart of the Ocean diamond in there overnight.

Meanwhile, there’s a void behind the slender seatbacks to store his’n’her’s crash helmets. But nowhere to stuff an umbrella.