How Aston Made The V8 DB11 Not Sound Like An AMG

The V8-powered Aston Martin DB11 features essentially the same 4.0-liter twin-turbo engine as the entire Mercedes-AMG range. But, how does it sound so different when fitted into the Aston?

Well, Auto Guide recently had the opportunity to speak with the senior manager of global launch strategy at Aston Martin, Simon Croft, who revealed that a lot of time was spent on ensuring the V8 DB11 sounds like a proper Aston.

So, if you look at … a sonograph of an [AMG] engine, you see it generates its main noise very low down in the frequencies; it’s a bass-heavy engine. That is not an Aston characteristic that is in tune with us and our brand. We need to move that dominant sound up into the frequency range,” Croft said,

To do so, Aston Martin engineers spent a considerable amount of time tweaking the intake and exhaust components of the engine to give it more of a howl and less of an AMG rumble.

“Changing the way the air goes in, changing the way the exhaust gasses and the sound is coming out, changing the engine management system, changing the throttle progression — those enable us to give it an Aston character rather than the AMG character,” he said.