DB9 (2008 six-speed manual, US market)

Why the manual exists

The DB9 was the first car on Aston Martin's bonded-aluminum VH platform and the first product of the Gaydon factory, and it was designed around a rear-mounted transaxle for weight distribution. The transaxle layout gave Aston two suppliers to choose from: ZF for the Touchtronic six-speed automatic that most buyers wanted, and Graziano of Turin for a six-speed manual that kept the DB7 Vantage's stick-shift customer in the fold. HWM Aston Martin's account is that the DB9 was originally available with an automatic only and the manual followed; the astonmartins.com model guide lists the Graziano manual with its integrated shifter bellcrank system and twin-plate clutch as an option from the 2005 model year, which is the first US model year. The manual was never a performance option. Every published US figure has the automatic quicker to 60 mph, and the manual was cheaper on the sticker, $163,900 against $168,600 for the 2008 coupe. It existed because a certain kind of buyer would not have the car without it.

The 450 hp car, 2005-2008

For its first US model years the DB9 carried the 5,935 cc V12 at 450 hp at 5,750 rpm and 420 lb-ft at 5,000 rpm. The factory first quoted 3,770 lb for the manual coupe against 3,880 lb for the automatic, then revised both figures upward to 3,880 lb and 3,968 lb. MotorWeek's 2005 test of a Touchtronic coupe recorded 0-60 mph in 4.8 seconds and the quarter mile in 13.2 seconds at 110 mph; Edmunds lists the 2008 manual coupe at 4.6 seconds to 60 mph and the automatic at 4.3. The 2007 model year brought the Sports Pack of forged wheels and a lower ride height, and 2008 was an equipment year in the US: cupholders, iPod integration, steering-wheel audio controls, Bluetooth, a windshield-embedded antenna and an upgraded sound system, with the mechanical package unchanged.

The 470 hp revision and the 2008 model-year problem

Aston Martin announced the revised DB9 in May 2008: peak power up 20 hp to 470 hp at 6,000 rpm, torque up to 443 lb-ft at 5,000 rpm, Bilstein dampers, revised upper suspension arms and retuned bushings, and a new valve box for the Touchtronic. The manual car's claimed 0-60 mph time dropped by 0.1 second to 4.6 seconds. Deliveries began in the second quarter of 2008. In the US, Edmunds and Cars.com list the 2008 model year at 450 hp and record the 20 hp gain as the news for 2009, while Consumer Guide describes the gain as starting in mid-2008. This is the detail that matters most to an owner of a 2008-titled car: the title year does not settle which engine, dampers and suspension arms the car carries. The build date and the specification on the car do.

What is physically different on a manual car

The gearbox is a Graziano six-speed transaxle mounted at the rear, shifted through cables and an integrated bellcrank, with a hydraulic twin-plate clutch. Against the Touchtronic car it gives up the column paddles and gains a clutch pedal and a conventional gate; the factory's first weight quote had the manual 110 lb lighter than the automatic. The manual was available on both bodies, and HWM's count has the Volante the scarcer of the two at 237 cars against 385 coupes worldwide. The astonmartins.com guide records the claim that as few as 5 percent of all DB9s were built with the Graziano transmission, and a US buyer's guide puts it at about five percent; none of the three sources that give a proportion say where their figure came from, and Aston Martin itself does not publish production numbers, which is why this page carries no total.

The end of the manual

The manual stayed on the US order sheet through the 2011 model year. Consumer Guide records that Aston Martin dropped the six-speed manual after 2011, and classic.com's market pages for both manual bodies run from model year 2005 to 2011 with no manual offered on the revised 2013 onward car. HWM dates the DB9's loss of the manual to the 2013 model year. That leaves the manual DB9 as a seven-model-year, sub-5-percent option on a car that was itself never mass-produced, with the 2008 and 2009 cars straddling the one significant mechanical change in the run.

The DB9's recall history in the US is short and specific. NHTSA lists four campaigns covering the 2008 car: a front lower suspension arm cam bolt that could crack along its shank and let the lower control arm move (reported September 2010), an accelerator pedal arm that may break because of a manufacturing error (January 2014), seat heater control modules that can fail and leave the heaters unable to be switched off (November 2014), and a battery supply cable that may be damaged when the driver's seat is in the full rearward position (November 2017). On the manual car the clutch is the wear item that the automatic does not have; the twin-plate hydraulic unit is a transaxle-out job, and a US buyer's guide notes owners reporting battery trouble on earlier cars and door locks that can fail and trap occupants. The air conditioning condenser at the front of the car corrodes and takes stone damage, with weak or warm air at the vents and an oily residue on the fins as the symptoms; a US parts supplier quotes a new OEM condenser at $550 to $850 and $400 to $700 in labor as of September 2026. Routine cost is the other reality: a US owner guide puts the annual or 10,000 mile service at about $1,000 at a dealer and $300 to $400 at an independent shop. Figures for carbon-ceramic brake replacement circulate for the DBS and later cars; they do not apply to a 2008 DB9, which has steel discs.

The first thing to establish on a 2008-titled US car is which car it is. Cars delivered from the second quarter of 2008 carry the 470 hp engine, Bilstein dampers and revised upper suspension arms, while US pricing guides list the 2008 model year at 450 hp; the build date, the engine calibration and the damper part numbers settle it, not the title. The manual itself is a Graziano transaxle with a cable-operated shifter and a twin-plate hydraulic clutch, so the shift quality across the gate cold and hot, the clutch bite point and any clutch judder on takeoff are the manual-specific checks, and a clutch that has been replaced on a car in the 40,000 mile range is more reassuring than one that has not. Cabin equipment identifies a genuine 2008 US car: cupholders, iPod integration, steering-wheel audio controls, Bluetooth, the windshield-embedded antenna and the upgraded sound system all arrived that year. Check that the four NHTSA recall campaigns have been carried out: the front lower suspension arm cam bolt (10V449000), the accelerator pedal arm (14V010000), the seat heater control module (14V753000) and the battery supply cable that can be damaged with the driver's seat fully rearward (17V795000). The air conditioning condenser sits directly behind the grille and is vulnerable to road debris, so cold air at the vents and a dry condenser face are worth a minute on your back with a flashlight. A car with Sports Pack wheels and the lower ride height is worth confirming against the build record, since the wheels were also fitted later to standard cars. Early cars had battery trouble reported by owners, so a conditioner and a recent battery are normal; a car that starts on the first turn after a week parked is telling you something.

As of September 2026 classic.com puts its market benchmark for a manual DB9 coupe at $66,443 with an average price of $66,737, and for a manual Volante at $67,281 with an average of $69,142. The recorded range for the manual coupe runs from $30,250 for a 2006 six-speed sold on December 13, 2023 to $90,000 for a 2011 car sold on Bring a Trailer on October 16, 2025. For the manual Volante the low is $33,000 for a 2008 Volante manual on January 4, 2024, and the top of the tracked listings is $89,979 for a 2006 car listed in August 2026, which is an asking figure rather than a sale. classic.com describes both manual bodies as much rarer than their Touchtronic siblings, and the spread between a $30,000 car and a $90,000 car is mostly the later 470 hp specification, mileage and condition rather than the gearbox alone. Set against the $163,900 list price of a 2008 manual coupe, a mid-market manual car as of September 2026 has retained roughly forty percent of its sticker after eighteen years, which is ordinary for a V12 grand tourer of this period and better than the automatic cars that sit below it. No auction lot page for a 2008 manual car could be fetched for this research; Cars and Bids results exist for 2008 DB9 coupes but the pages did not return content, so no individual 2008 manual sale is quoted here.