Car: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
Prices: £83,000 [Coupe] / £91,000 (Roadster) [est]– on the road
Insurance Group: 20
Emissions: 358-360g/km
Performance: [Coupe] 0-60mph 4.7s / Max Speed 180mph
Fuel Consumption: [Coupe] (urban) 12.5mpg / (urban) 26.6mpg / (combined) 18.8mpg
Safety: Twin front & side airbags, ABS
Dimensions: length/width/height mm 4383/1866/1255
ADVANTAGE ASTON
Our Rating: 7.4 / 10
If you can’t afford that top end exotic supercar, Aston Martin’s improved V8 Vantage could be the next best thing. Andy Enright presses his nose to the glass.
The ‘baby Aston’ aims to distil the brand’s desirability and heritage into a more affordable package and makes a very nice stab at it. The Vantage looks great inside and out with an improved and very charismatic 4.7-litre engine providing the soundtrack and a driving experience that’s a well-judged compromise between comfort and enjoyment.
One of the motoring world’s worst kept secrets was finally released to a slack jawed press at the 2005 Geneva Motor Show. That Aston Martin were working on a smaller, more affordable car to slot into their range below the DB9 was well known, but pictures did not do this car justice. Even finished in a rather unflattering shade of bright yellow, the car looked knee-weakeningly stunning. It did then and it does now.
The yellow was a deliberate choice, emphasising the V8 Vantage’s younger and more extrovert appeal compared to the more restrained and elegant DB9 and Vanquish models. In size, it’s not too far off a Porsche 911 and shares the German car’s pugnacious stance. Porsche and Aston Martin have a bit of history and the development of the V8 Vantage overlapped considerably with that of the 997 series 911. One of the reasons that Aston Martin showed a prototype version of the V8 so early, at the 2002 Detroit Show in fact, was because sales of the DB9 were dwindling and they needed to grab advance orders that could otherwise have gone to Weissach.
The original version’s 4.3-litre V8 has been replaced by a 4.7 litre V8 engine with a power output of 420bhp (up from 380bhp) and delivers peak torque of 470Nm (an 15% increase), providing the V8 Vantage with new reserves of mid-range performance, an improved 0-60mph time of 4.7 seconds and top speed of 180mph. Those figures put it in the same sort of ballpark as a Porsche Carrera S, if not a Turbo.
The V8 Vantage transmissions have lately undergone changes to improve performance and to handle the increased levels of power and torque. Both the standard manual stick-shift gearbox and the optional Sportshift transmission are more response and easier to use. With the Sportshift set-up, ‘Dual Throttle Map’ software is also featured. When ‘Comfort’ mode is selected the engine reacts in a smoother more progressive manner to driver throttle inputs and in the default ‘Sports’ mode the throttle mapping is more aggressive, delivering a more dynamic and sporting feel.
A series of improvements have also been recently introduced to the V8 Vantage chassis and suspension setup to deliver improved body control and low speed ride quality, enabling the driver to take full advantage of the increased performance potential.
Although the basic body silhouette is instantly recognisable as an Aston Martin, the V8 Vantage is over a foot shorter than a DB9 and 60mm lower slung. Put the two cars side by side and the DB9 is revealed as the GT car it is, while the Vantage sits foursquare, the big rear wheel arch bulges lending it a pugnacious muscularity. Interiors have never been an Aston Martin problem and the V8 Vantage’s cabin is one of their best efforts to date. Much of the architecture and components are common with the DB9. Taking the decision to ditch vestigial rear seats and optimise space for driver and passenger means that there’s enough head and leg room for six-footers, while the width of the cabin and the broad transmission tunnel will make banging elbows a distant memory.
With a relatively large 4.7-litre eight cylinder engine up front, weight distribution was a priority for Aston Martin’s engineers. A transmission at the rear of the car helps generate a 49:51 weight distribution front and rear, the engine being what is fashionably termed ‘front-mid mounted’ or in layman’s terms, with its centre of gravity set behind the line of the front axle. All of this helps the V
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