The Redline

We spend a week with the V8-powered Aston Martin Vantage – deliberately in bright orange – to see how it stacks up against the competition.

Words: Peter Anderson
Images and co-pilot: Blake Currall

I’ve not had a lot of experience with the Aston range, and that’s mostly on me. I admired the Rapide, DBeverything and Vanquish from afar but just never brought myself to pick up the phone and ask nicely. Thankfully, Aston asked me where the hell I’d been all these years, especially after my first drive of one back in early 2022 that I really rather enjoyed.

I loved the Vantage F1 and ever since I’d wondered what the car was like without the go-fasterish bits on it. Sure, it’s had an update since and brought with it a bunch of features missing in action on the older car like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto but it’s still a vanilla-ish Vantage.

Amazingly, I had a choice and those of you who know me in real life will be further astonished that I chose this Cosmos Orange unit over a more traditional green. Because you only live once.

How much is an Aston Martin Vantage and what do I get?

Aston Martin Vantage Coupe: $410,000 + ORC:

The Vantage coupe kicks off at $410,000 which is around the price of a Porsche 911 GTS, give or take. Even a cursory glance at the photos on this page will suggest a liberal application of options and ya-huh, that suggestion is reality:

• Bowers & Wilkins Audio System
• Black Wings Badges
• Brake Disc Type – Carbon
• Centre Finisher – Satin Carbon Fibre
• Leather Colour – Contemporary
• Carpet Colour – Contemporary
• Paint – Q – Special
• Headlining – Contemporary Alcantara
• Lower Trim inlay – Carbon
• Carbon Fibre Lightweight Seat
• Roof Panel – Carbon Fibre Gloss
• Contrast Stitching
• Smoked Rear Lamp
• Carbon Pack – Upper
• Carbon Pack – Lower
• Upper Trim inlay – Carbon
• 21 Y Spoke Forged – Satin Black DT

So there’s not a heap left standard, with a lot of carbon fibre added in and some bling removed. Despite the plush seats getting the hoof and replaced with carbon buckets, it remains comfortable. If you spec this up on the website, you don’t get a price, so I’m assuming it’s a lot and down to negotiation.

The exterior colour is a Q colour. Q is the advanced personalisation department at Aston, sort of like Ferrari’s bespoke department where you can pretty much choose any old colour you like and match it with your favourite tie or socks or yacht or whatever. And yes, Q is a Bond reference.

There is an impressive level of customisation in this car, more than I thought practical for such a small company, but I guess when you’re asking people to stump up north of four hundred grand, you better be able to give them exactly what they want.

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Look and Feel

The refreshed interior is much nicer than the pre-facelift car’s although the hefty options applied to this one may have muddied the waters a little. Carbon fibre bucket seats are very hit and miss but these were a hit, although you have to be extremely careful about rushing an entry as my poor wife found out the hard way. Once in, though, they were beautifully comfortable, the blue Alcantara somehow working despite the flashes of blue leather and orange stitching.

I much prefer the reorganised centre stack. A new 10.25-inch screen – it looks small because it’s quite wide – is clearer and backed by less ambitious and therefore less terrible software. The ageing version Mercedes’ COMAND system has thankfully been shown the door. I still think Android Automotive would be a better choice here (and I’m an Apple guy) but it’s still better than the old clunker.

Instead of the previous orthogonal wheel, there’s a more traditional flat-bottomed round wheel and I don’t know how I feel about that. I really liked that wheel in the F1 I drove…anyway, it’s a nice wheel, I just liked the other one, felt racier.

This interior also feels more special with fewer obviously cheap plastics and if there are parts from other cars, they’re hard to spot, apart from the Mercedes stalks but as I say in the Emira and Elise videos, who cares? You want stuff that just works and these work.

The interior door handles are a pain to see in the dark and they’re really small but that’s about the worst of it.

For the update, Aston redesigned the front end. I personally felt the old one was a bit weak, with a lot of Ferrari Roma mixed with Nissan Z. it wasn’t ugly but it didn’t have the presence of its predecessors or its brethren. The new grille is more Aston, the lights make more sense in the sheetmetal and I like it a lot.

The side strake in the front quarter panels is back and looking superb as it integrates with the doors. I love the way the doors open, the trademark Aston swan movement.

I can’t believe how much I adored this colour. I would not buy this car in this colour, let me be clear, I would prefer it in something more muted, more Aston, but it was so much fun just to look at. It works beautifully with the lines, as though the inherent beauty of the proportions and the loudness of the colour worked hand in hand rather than against each other. It’s a neat trick.

There is some beautiful detailing on this car’s exterior and I love the ducktail wing at the rear, no messy extra accoutrements for this machine. The diffuser looks properly aggressive, the quad exhausts a signal of intent and if you don’t black out the badges for Cosmos Orange you’re doing it wrong. It really is spectacular, from grille to exhaust tip. This is the sort of car people build houses around so they can look at it.

And incredibly, between the ducktail and the diffuser, Aston says there’s 70kg of downforce at just over 320km/h. This thing can do 320!

Chassis

The Vantage rides on Aston’s long-serving aluminium-intensive platform and in this particular car, the steel brakes are replaced with expensive carbon ceramics. These lop 27kg of unsprung mass off (the Vantage has a 1700kg kerb weight), so are not a bad investment if you want to reduce the standard car’s bulk.

Tyres are courtesy of Michelin, with AML-coded Pilot Sport 5S rubber, measuring a massive 275/35 R21 at the front and 325/30 R21 at the rear. It’s quite something seeing over two feet of rubber from behind the car (if you’re crouched low enough). 

There is also a recalibrated active diff, a new Launch Control system (untested, the week I had this car, the weather was horrific)(okay the real reason is that I hate using launch control systems, I have too much mechanical sympathy) and the ability to dial in how much wheelspin you get out of the launch system.

Aston also says the new dampers have five times the “bandwidth of force” of the previous model and these dampers work together with structurally stiffer rear end (up 29 percent) and new under trays front and rear which both add more rigidity. The extra bandwidth means the engineers have more choice on damper settings.

Front brakes measure a colossal 400mm and the rears 360mm. In standard guise and carbon guise the discs are drilled and Aston says the pedal weight has been tweaked for increased feel. One thing that had me laughing every time I saw it was the handbrake caliber which is larger than the front calipers on a Corolla.

Engine and Drivetrain

The Vantage’s AMG-sourced M177 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 remains one of my favourites of all time. Flexible, indomitable and with a torque reserve you’ll never exhaust, it’s also incredibly characterful. In this iteration it offers up a thunderous 489kW at 6000rpm and 800Nm between 2000 and 5000rpm.

Aston says power is up by 30 percent and torque 15 percent and claims it’s the biggest power jump between models the company has ever implemented. My only complaint. is that the engine bay could be more attractive and with neater welds but as co-pilot Mark Dewar reminded me, we’ve seen worse on a Ferrari. The black triangular brace, though…phwoar.

As well as the brace, Aston has fitted bigger turbos, more aggressive cams and a whopper of an exhaust system in concert with a bunch of detail changes. 0-100 is over in 3.4 seconds according to Aston and I have no reason to disbelieve that.

The engine is really burrowed into the car, too, responsible for it being front mid-engined and therefore giving the Vantage a claimed 50:50 weight distribution.

Aston chose the ZF eight-speed – honestly, you could write a doctorate thesis on how good this gearbox is – for transmission duties, sending power to the giant rear wheels. Compared to the previous version of the Vantage, there’s a shortened final drive (3.083:1) and recalibrated shifts (ie they’re faster). The gearbox itself is located at the rear axle to help push the weight rearward

Driving

This thing is an absolute treat to drive. Getting in reminds me of its obvious competitor, AMG’s own GT family, but this car feels more together (admittedly the last time I drove a GT anything was 2020). The carbon seats are so good but as I’ve already mentioned, you need to be careful you clear them on the way in.

There is plenty of adjustment, with the optional seats losing powered sliding but I can’t be bothered caring about that. The new wheel is lovely if a bit fat for some folks but I really love the paddles which have a lovely haptic clunk when you pull them, unlike say, an Audi R8 (RIP) or Lotus Emira.

Firing up, the engine has a lovely little whirr and the 4.0-litre barks into life. The toddler-tongue gear selector works well and is easy to understand, rocking back and forth depending on the gear you want. You also get a gear quickly which is important when you’re manoeuvring a car that isn’t exactly endowed with a small turning circle.

In Sport mode – which is as low it goes, apart from wet – the Vantage is quite happy. You do get a lot of road noise on bad surfaces because there is a phenomenal amount of rubber underneath you, but it’s comfortable and easy. The chunky torque is well managed by the ZF’s calibration and what I like about this transmission is that it’s more obedient to commands than in the current M3 or M5. Or Audi RS6 for that matter. It’s like Aston is more confident in its ability to shift hard and fast.

Annoyingly, the Bowers and Wilkins stereo’s extra speaker on the middle of the dash means that sunny days deliver even more reflections. Given the weather was vile when I had it, I didn’t notice that until the morning I returned it. On the upside the lovely wing mirrors are surprisingly big and therefore functional. Which is handy given the limited over-the-shoulder visibility.

I did find a break in the weather and took it somewhere fun and the same fun place I took the F1 I drove a couple of years ago. I found the F1 to be excellent to drive, I really loved it. The power in that car was somewhere between the old and the new but this updated V8 is something else.

The new gearbox and diff work the rear wheels very hard out of corners. There is an appreciable difference between Sport and Sport+ (no Track on the road for me)(fight me) but there’s enough slip in Sport+ for the Vantage to feel just the right kind of loose.

Its V8 bark really dominates the experience but I really feel the new car has more in the chassis and it feels more of a cohesive piece. The faster steering, the little bit extra out of the diff, the more cooperative gearbox all prove very entertaining but it’s more controllable. While the F1 was better, my colleagues said the standard car bordered on wayward when under pressure. Not so much in this car.

The brakes are colossally effective, of course, and turn in is further aided by the clever diff and the updated braking system. It’s so much fun to hustle and as the weather closed back in, I was left frustrated I couldn’t explore more.

Redline Recommendation

This car is vastly more convincing both in itself and in company. It feels more aggressive than the Roma, more comfortable than the AMG GT and more interesting than the 911, all while keeping up with each of them. It must be incredible on track with all those detail changes. And if it wasn’t Cosmos Orange but a more traditional Aston colour, it would be superb as a sleeper.

It’s fast, it’s fun and it feels more luxurious and expensive than before, better matching its substantial price. The more powerful and even sharper Vantage S was just announced a couple of weeks ago so that thing will be bonkers. But as more of an all-rounder – at least as all-round as a two-door sports car can be – the Vantage is incredibly competitive.