What's the difference?
It might look like a stealth fighter, but this dramatic example of Aston Martin’s DB11 AMR didn’t fly under anyone’s radar during its time in the CarsGuide garage.
Forget the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, this piece of British royalty caused jaws to drop and camera phones to rise more effectively than any mere ginger celebrity or ex-TV trouper.
AMR stands for Aston Martin Racing, and this performance flagship replaces the ‘standard’ DB11, delivering even more fire under the hood and fury from the exhaust. Aston also claims it’s faster, dynamically superior, and sleeker on the inside.
In fact, the DB11 AMR’s 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 now produces enough grunt to accelerate it from 0-100km/h in just 3.7 seconds.
More than just a flash Harry, then? Let’s find out.
Once upon a time Queensland was the home of Aussie camper-trailer manufacturing and companies, such as Lifestyle Camper Trailers, were pumping out camper after camper to happy customers. But then came the imports and the price that people were willing to pay for the product dropped very quickly. Many local companies succumbed and just went out of business, others started importing their own and some innovated, developing new products; Lifestyle did two of the three.
Today Lifestyle only builds light-weight, heavily off-road caravans which it calls Hypercampers and others would call a hybrid caravan, because it takes some elements of a camper-trailer and others of a caravan. It has four models, one of which is built in China in a factory the company part-owns. The other three, including the Reconn R2, which I’m testing, is built in Queensland.
The Aston Martin DB11 AMR is fast, capable and beautiful. It has a unique character and charisma its Italian and German competitors can’t match. That said, some important media and safety-tech features are absent. So, it’s not perfect... just brilliant.
This is one of the campers that very finely straddles that line between camper-trailer and caravan. It’s light-weight and simple to use, even if (and mostly because) it lacks the wide-open comforts of a traditional caravan. It’s very capable, well-equipped and very well made.Â
If you do like to escape the great outdoors occasionally while camping (or someone you dearly love, does), this is well worth a look. It’ll follow you just about anywhere and your camp life will be better for it.