Matchbox’s Aston Martin DB12 Is Good, But Maybe Not Good Enough

It’s hard for me to view this model through an impartial lens, because I so desperately wanted it to be made.  I grew up loving the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, watching acceleration videos and walkthrough tours in the early days of Youtube car content, and daydreaming of owning one in a few years (ah, the optimism of youth).  The DB9 and DBS were effortlessly cool too, with their James Bond connection and Top Gear races.  Every Aston Martin from my formative years seemed to be a perfect alchemy of style and sophistication.  Matchbox’s old DBS Volante mainline casting remains one of my favorite diecast models of all time!

Then, around 2015, everything changed.  With the introduction of the limited-production DB10, Aston Martin moved to a new era in their design language, and it never worked for me.  Their lineup ranged from the mediocre-looking DB11 to the truly ugly 2018+ V8 Vantage.  At the same time, the interiors became more obviously sourced from Mercedes, and the resulting cars were uninteresting to me.  Then, at long last, Aston Martin debuted the DB12 in 2023, and it was the first Aston Martin in nearly a decade that looked good.  Heck, it looked more than good – it looked stunning in proper Aston Martin fashion. 

Which is what makes it nearly impossible for me to approach this new Matchbox Collectors model with any form of impartiality.  I even put the DB12 on my Matchbox new model wishlist back in 2023!  This was one of my most anticipated new models of the year, so I’m thrilled to finally have it in hand…but I also find myself feeling a tad underwhelmed. 

Perhaps this DB12 just fell victim to my incredibly lofty expectations.  After all, I’ve been waiting for this model for over 2 years!  In fairness to Matchbox, there’s very little fault that I can find with this casting from a technical standpoint.  There’s just a few small errors or compromises that make this good model fall short of greatness. 

My biggest problem with this model is the color.  In a vacuum, it looks fine.  The color of the wheels looks a little rough on camera, but isn’t too offensive in person.  I’m not looking at this model in a vacuum though, because I know what the press color of the DB12 (which this model is clearly trying to emulate) is supposed to look like.  In Aston’s press photography, the Iridescent Emerald paint is both brighter and more saturated, while the bronze wheels are so dark they verge on being brown.  

The green that Matchbox used is more of a Forest Green, with a hue that looks considerably darker.  The wheels, on the other hand, are somewhere between gold and Mustard Yellow, and they’re certainly nowhere near the classy bronze color of the real wheels they’re trying to emulate.  At least the wheel design itself is the best in Matchbox’s premium arsenal, even if they still fall short of almost all of the Real Rider designs used by Team Blue. 

Since we’re on the subject of objectionable choices, let’s run through my other criticisms of this model, rapid fire style:

• The lack of side mirrors is disappointing, though not unexpected 
• The black roof is technically an option on the real car, but nearly every picture of a DB12 I see features a color-matched roof, so I would have preferred green roof printing
• The casting includes bumps for the parking sensors on the front and rear, and I don’t think they translate well to 1/64 scale 

Despite my criticisms, I don’t think this is a bad model.  There’s a lot to like here too!  The proportions are a very close match to the real car, and the metal base makes this casting feel wonderfully weighty.  Apart from the aforementioned paint and roof colors, the deco is absolutely perfect.  It features every bit of detailing I want on a premium model, without any extraneous graphics to detract from the look. 

I especially like the printed green stripe above the side window, which helps the plastic roof section feel more detailed and appropriate on a premium model.  They even printed the roof black, rather than relying on the tinted windows to make it look black-ish. 

One of the DB12’s most distinctive styling features is the return of the massive Aston Martin corporate grille, and it’s fully detailed here, with the excellent printing alignment that only Matchbox’s Thailand factory seems to be capable of.  Even the radar sensor at the bottom of the grille is detailed black with perfectly aligned printing! 

Around back, the DB12’s razor-thin LED brake lights are perfectly printed, and the Aston Martin logo and text on the trunk are reasonably readable.  The exhaust tips look good despite their lack of silver detailing, though I’m not crazy about how visible the rear rivet is behind the diffuser. 

So, was this new DB12 worth the wait?  It certainly won’t be in the pantheon of all-time great Matchbox models, but I’m happy to add this long-awaited Aston Martin model to my collection (especially since Aston has always felt so underrepresented in the diecast world).  If anything, I wish this casting didn’t have a metal base to limit its use to the Collectors line, because I think a red recolor with the silver 10-spoke plastic wheels could look great!  Sadly, recolors are few and far between in the Collectors line, so this green version will have to hold me over for now.  At least we have a mainline Aston Martin Vanquish casting coming in the 2026 lineup, even though that one still doesn’t have mirrors!