There are those little impossibilities in life. Like resisting a second spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. Or overcoming the urge not to pop bubble wrap.

Then there’s the impossibility that comes with piloting a new Aston Martin DB12 Volante. Here it’s stepping out, walking away and fighting the overwhelming urge not to look back and drink-in this piece of automotive art. Impossible 

Just gaze at the thing. Michelangelo couldn’t have done a better job sculpting those rear fenders. See it in profile and that waistline looks for all the world like a rollercoaster at Busch Gardens.

Then there’s grille. I’m sure William Wordsworth, were the bard still around, would have penned sonnets about this purposeful pout with its instantly recognizable outline. It’s a shape that’s guaranteed to leave any sportscar lover shaken and stirred.  

While the sibling DB12 coupe is a thing of equal beauty, chopping the top to create this latest convertible Volante – it means ‘flying’ in Italian – heightens the visual excitement. 

Me? I take one look and conjure-up dreamy images of cruising the Cote d’Azur, heading to St. Tropez for lunch. The most-beautiful car in the world? It would get my vote.

Evolved from the previous DB11, this new 12 sees a multitude of key improvements. The biggest, perhaps, is the significant power hike for the carry-over Mercedes AMG-sourced twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8. 

Whereas the previous version cranked out a non-trivial 503 hp, bigger turbos and better cooling see a leap to an impressive 671 hp. Peddle to the metal will send the Aston lunging from standstill to 60 mph in a mere 3.6 seconds. Top speed? You’re looking at 202 mph.

Yet perhaps my favorite performance number is 16. That’s the time in seconds it takes for that tight-fitting, eight-layer cloth top to unlatch and glide oh-so majestically into a deep well behind the rear seats.

Slide behind that thick, deep-dish, flat-bottomed wheel into the nicely-bolstered driver’s seat, and it feels like descending into your favorite La-Z-Boy. 

This is a fabulous cabin, dripping with luxury and hand-crafted quality. Everything here feels hyper-expensive, from the diamond-quilted and perforated leather, to the stitching on the dash, to the polished metal for the delicate slivers of trim.

For this new DB12, Aston engineers jettisoned the previous Mercedes-sourced infotainment system for an in-house creation. It’s good, but not great, forcing the driver to wade through multiple, distracting layers of menus to operate functions. And unless you’re 13 with perfect 20/20 vision, you’ll loath the too-small instrument display fonts. 

Also a source of mind-bending irritation is the speed limit warning bongs. I’m told it’s part of European legislation, but the last time I checked we’re not in Europe. 

Yes, you can turn it off by delving into the touchscreen menus. But every time you re-start the car, it re-activates. Same with the lane-departure warning. Annoying doesn’t come close.

Bongs aside, to drive this new drop-top DB is to absolutely love it. From the deep, throaty whooomph that comes with every press of the ‘start’ button, to the tsunami of power as you accelerate away from a stop light. 

And it is one seriously rapid machine, especially in ‘Sport’ or ‘Sport+’ modes when it feels like you’ve added a squirt of nitroglycerin to the tank.  

Play with the quick-shifting, eight-speed automatic via those elephant-ear paddle shifters, or let it take care of business itself and either way, progress along a twisty backroad is swift, athletic and agile. 

Thank the 590 lb-ft of torque, the car’s I-beam-stiff bonded aluminum chassis, more cross-bracing than on the Eiffel Tower, and new adaptive dampers which offer a surprisingly smooth ride.

While this new DB12 Volante looks and drives like a million bucks, you’ll pay from $268,400 for the pleasure of ownership. Also factor in a multitude of options you won’t be able to resist from Aston’s Q-division bespoke department. Our test car topped out at a non-trivial $325,700.

As for looking back and gazing at this rolling sculpture of an automobile every time you extract yourself from the cockpit? Priceless. Just priceless