It is really an Aston Martin Vantage V12 on a serious dose of steroids. Winged, bodykitted and reeking of fresh carbon fiber and the smell of burnt hundred-dollar bills, the Aston Martin GT12 is Aston’s hat tip to the successes of the Vantage GT3 race car. The name is due to a quick squabble by Porsche, who bitched that they had the exclusive right to use “GT3” on their cars. Aston simply nodded, and agreed to change the moniker. Now it’s GT12, for each of the twelve cylinders under the hood that are ready, willing, and fully able to thrash any potential challenger…that is, if the 100 owners who plonked down half a million dollars don’t hermetically seal up these road-legal stompers away in their climate controlled garages somewhere under armed guard. At least one owner (quite possibly Aston Martin themselves) has no trouble letting autojourno Chris Harris go full-on ballistic with one of the upper-crust performance automobiles. He can critique all he wants to, but here’s the bottom line: that exhaust note alone sells the car. If Aston Martin had made the Cygnet sound like that, then maybe they would have moved more of them.