Aston Martin continues to elevate its dynamic luxury image with a substantial and thorough overhaul of its ‘junior’ model. The result is something of a pocket supercar, a worthy competitor in a competitive field of status-infused sports cars. Announced earlier this year, the new Aston Martin Vantage is physically and mechanically transformed by the updates, inside and out.
Aston has applied the Vantage badge to a vastly disparate range of cars over the past 75 years, all united by a focus on performance. The modern Vantage era began back in 2005, when the company revealed the V8 Vantage concept, a sister car to the 2003 Aston Martin DB9.
Built on Aston Martin’s then freshly developed ‘VH’ aluminium architecture, the compact V8 Vantage was a sporting proposition from the outset. It was also a hugely successful racing car, and victories on the track were parlayed into increasingly ferocious limited-edition road cars, like the V8 Vantage N420.
Despite this focus, the original Vantage usually played second fiddle to the DB9 and DBS, a hierarchy that survived into the DB11 era; the corresponding Vantage model didn’t quite have the cachet or class of the larger GT. Yes, it was still a better drive and the equivalent race car was even more competitive, but as an expression of ‘ultimate sporting luxury’, it fell rather flat, not least in the chaotic interior that one had to tolerate, rather than luxuriate in.
The new Vantage aims to change all that. For decades, supercar makers have been slowly and surely turning up the wick on their products, carefully looking over each other’s shoulders to ensure that each successive model has more power and better stats than its predecessor and its rivals.
It's an arms race that no one can win, now that electrification has comprehensively swept the board with big numbers that can’t be matched through combustion. If you’re Aston Martin – and Ferrari and Lamborghini – this is potentially a problem. Luxury sports car makers have traditionally drawn parallels between power and passion, sound and sensation and cylinders and class, a set-up that swiftly unravels when faced with the insipid whine of electric motors and the absence of slick gear shifts and spinning rev counters.
As a result, beneath the Vantage’s sculpted bonnet it’s very much business as usual. Aston Martin has a long-running partnership with Mercedes-AMG, and it’s the latter’s twin-turbo-charged V8 that provides the shove. This is the same unit found in the DB12 and DBX707, as well as several of AMG’s own products. Here it’s been uprated to put out 665PS, which pushes the Vantage’s top speed to over 200mph with an EV-baiting 0-62mph sprint of 3.5 seconds. Is that finally enough?
Taken on their own, these mechanical upgrades would probably sate the most dedicated drivers, but the more aesthetically minded will be delighted to find a brand new interior, with new levels of quality and consideration given to graphics, screens, switchgear and interfaces alike, as well as a more fluent, elegant exterior.
From the front, new Vantage has a wider, bolder stance, with a large grille and side vents that bring to mind the One-77 Hypercar unveiled back in 2008. Headlights and taillights are similarly inspired, as is the exaggerated and expanded side vent detail that has been a Vantage mainstay for decades. It’s not a pretty car, per se, but an undeniably attractive one, with fine proportions and a carefully considered stance that conveys a sense of innate power from any angle.
Aston Martin Vantage review: on the road and track in Spain
On the open road, in sparsely trafficked southern Spain, the Vantage is in its element. Long sweeping curves, dry surfaces, an almost complete absence of other vehicles and bright sunshine encouraged the assembled press fleet to make rapid progress across a well-chosen selection of roads. It’s impossible to explore the limits of a fast modern sports car in a public place – and nor should you try – but the Vantage’s forte is the effortless, overwhelming surge of power on tap and the precise, well weighted steering. None of these things need to be anywhere near the limit to be experienced, nor do you have to be a professional driver to benefit from the car’s perfect 50:50 weight balance.
A couple of hundred kilometres passed in a pleasing blur, in which time the new interior got scarcely a glance. A welcome return to dials and buttons ensures that familiarity will bring greater confidence, even if the on-screen typography is a little too small at times. Other key functions, like the multi-stage traction control – could also do with more prominence. Seats are tastefully trimmed and stitched, supportive and sober (more outlandish personal preferences can of course be indulged at extra cost), and the Cosmic Orange exterior complemented the car’s lines without crossing over into brashness.
We followed up the road route with some time on the local Monteblanco Circuit, starting behind the official Vantage F1 Safety Car for a few laps before the track was ours. It was here that the dichotomy of the desirable supercar was laid bare. At first, the Vantage was a reassuring companion on an unfamiliar circuit, a sports car with baked in experience of twists and turns, rapid downshifts and closely cut apexes. Sadly, the same could not be said for your writer’s expertise.
Before long, we had trespassed outside our zone of competence to find a place where even the most sophisticated chassis and steering couldn’t help. Buried in the tyre wall while watching a marshal wave the red flag is a mortifying and sobering place to be, a reminder that for all the preening, pomp and status that surrounds the contemporary supercar, it is still very much a machine to be treated with respect.
It wasn’t long ago that we were musing about the future of the supercar, and wondering aloud if the 2022 Aston Martin V12 Vantage was a last hurrah from the company’s long association with 12-cylinder engines. Barely 18 months later, and Aston Martin has announced a revised and updated V12 to keep pace with demand, an engine that’s set to debut in the new Aston Martin Vanquish due to be revealed later this summer.
The Vantage might be Aston Martin’s lowliest model, but its sheer power and poise show that the hierarchy of ultra-luxury now starts from a very elevated point indeed. Any new paradigms in automotive technology still have a long climb to catch up.
Aston Martin Vantage, from £165,000, AstonMartin.com, @AstonMartin
