Aston Martin DB9 Volante Self Drive

It's hard to stay objective about a car as beautiful as the new DB9 Volante. Even more seductive than the coupe from which it was hewn, the Volante is one of those rare convertibles that's as captivating with the roof up as it is with it down. Those sleek, sculptural lines effortlessly embody the grace, style and emotion of open-air driving in much the same way that a 3.8-litre E-type Roadster must have done four decades ago. It makes the 911 Cabrio look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Like the coupe, the DB9 Volante employs Aston's 450bhp, 6-litre V12, an engine that emits one of the great modern exhaust notes and stirs your soul with every squeeze of the throttle. Mated to a paddle-shift torque-converter automatic transmission that combines the refinement and relaxation of a true auto with punchy upshifts and throttle-blip downshifts, the Volante promises to excel whether you're in the mood to press on or simply cruise and pose.

Raising and lowering the roof is a one-touch operation, and is both swift and near-silent. Roof-up, while there's more wind noise than in the coupe, refinement is impressive, even at elevated motorway speeds. Drop the hood, raise the side windows and the cockpit remains pleasantly free from buffeting and provides the perfect opportunity to hear the V12's addictive cry.

An inspiring combination. But not without flaws. Inevitably, removing the roof has had an effect on the chassis' structural rigidity, and you can feel shivers being transmitted through the steering wheel and the seat of your pants. The weird thing is it doesn't feel like scuttle shake in the time-honoured sense, for the frequency is too high to be described as a wobble or shake, but not high enough to be a vibration. Perhaps the DB9's aluminium chassis structure makes it harder to minimise the transmission of NVH than in a conventional monocoque.

Whatever the cause, the symptoms are a niggle rather than a major catastrophe, but they also mean the Volante isn't a drum-tight, tremor-resistant challenger to the 997 Cabrio or Ferrari F430 Spider, both of which are sharper and more driver-focused. Trouble is, much like the DB9 coupe, it's not the soft-edged schmoozer either, for there's a tension to the damping that never really allows it to relax. Brittle and sharp-edged when you'd expect it to be supple and pliant, the chassis rarely seems to truly feel at one with the road surface. To coin a Lotus phrase, it doesn't breath.

The steering and brakes also have the coupe's unusually weighty feel. It takes some getting used to, but once acclimatised you can guide the Volante smoothly and accurately, and carry serious pace along challenging roads. As speed builds, though, that steering weight comes at the expense of detailed feel, and can make the Volante seem hefty through fast transient curves. It's all a bit musclebound for a car that looks so poised and lissom.

Of course, all of this is objective criticism. I'm duty-bound to tell you that the Porsche is sublimely damped and the Ferrari impressively rigid, but then I should also inform you that, subjectively, I think the 997 Cabrio is ugly and soulless by comparison, and that I'd never choose an F430 Spider over a Berlinetta, however good it is. The Aston might have some failings, but it certainly doesn't want for desirability.

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