Aston Martin recently celebrated their 110th anniversary, and over that incredible period of time there have been some iconic engines. Th e W.O. Bentley 6-cylinder proved instrumental to Aston’s post-war growth, the Tadek Marek-designed replacement powered Aston Martins from the late 1950s to the early 1970s after which his iconic V8 design was in production for almost three decades.
Of all those iconic engines however, nothing has ever matched the fame, drama and performance of the iconic Aston Martin V12. The first sign that an Aston Martin V12 was on the way came in the form of the Ford Indigo concept, unveiled at the 1996 Detroit Auto Show to celebrate Ford’s recent Indy 500 win. The 6.0L V12 engine at the heart of the Indigo was essentially two Duratec V6 units welded together. Contrary to popular belief the AML V12 differs greatly from that original “welded Duratec” prototype, with higher grade aluminium used, new combustion chambers, a higher compression ratio, cross-bolted main bearing caps and a new larger cooling system. The physical dimensions of the V12 were also different to the Duratec V6, with a bank-to-bank off set approximately 15mm less than the Duratec unit.
Concurrently to development of the V12 engine, Aston Martin started work on designing a new ‘hero’ model for the range. The DB7, in straight-6 guise, had done fantastically well for Aston but a replacement for the aging Virage-based supercars was needed that would show the world that Aston Martin was a modern carmaker ready for the 21st century. The result was Project Vantage, essentially a preproduction V12 Vanquish fitted with the new 5.9L AML V12. Hand built but featuring modern materials including carbon fibre composites, the V12 Vanquish finally brought the Aston Martin V12 engine to production.
The AML V12 engine was soon shoehorned into the DB7 for the Vantage variant, before becoming a mainstay of the VH era of Gaydon produced Aston Martins. The DB9, DBS, Rapide, Virage and Vanquish were all powered by the 5.9L V12, as were variants of the Vantage including the stunning V12 Zagato. A 7.3L version of the V12 was at the heart of the incredible One-77 concept, but with tightening restrictions on emissions the AML V12 bowed out after featuring in the one-off Victor. A new 5.2L twin-turbo V12 took over as the mainstay engine of the Aston range, while a 6.5L Cosworth developed unit went on to power the Valkyrie hypercar.
In production for almost two decades, the AML V12 is an iconic engine that featured in some of the most popular Aston Martin models. Aston Workshop have a huge amount of experience working on the V12, with our services ranging from simple annual servicing to full engine rebuilds. Despite being one of the most complex engines the marque has produced the AML V12 is a very robust powerplant with a minimal failure rate. The issues we see are normally limited to oil starvation to the crank shaft, a failure of the breather system leading to oil consumption and occasionally valve sticking. These can normally be traced back to low use of the car, and not checking oil levels regularly enough. More catastrophic failures are often talked about but in our extensive experience are exceptionally rare.
Where a major failure does occur we offer a range of options. Firstly, we can repair the original engine which keeps the matching numbers provenance of the car. One option is to order a new engine from the factory, but with the 5.9L V12 now being out of production for a number of years supply from the factory is inconsistent. For a quicker fix we offer an exchange service where we take your original engine and fit one of our fully rebuilt ones to your car. Our factory trained technicians, equipped with the most up to date diagnostic and repair tools, ensure that our V12 engine rebuilds are done to exacting standards in line with the original factory processes.
