Aston Martin Vantage: First Drive

Aston Martin Vantage: First Drive

Sometimes, but not often, you drive a car over a stretch of road and it does something so extraordinary, you simply have to turn around and take another run. Just, you know, to be sure. So you do, again and again. Maybe it’s Dodge’s 840-hp Demon lifting an axle as you launch down the drag strip. Or a Civic Type R—front-drive, but limited-slip-equipped—actually pulling itself into that curve instead of washing wide when you climb clumsily over the gas pedal.

There was a time, back when the David Brown behind those iconic “DB” initials was in charge, when Aston reserved the Vantage badge for the most special machines. More recently, Vantage has come to represent the least expensive way into an Aston. When the baby Vantage appeared in 2005, slightly underpowered and fuzzy in its handling abilities, it felt like it hadn’t quite earned the badge. Credit the company for honing and improving that car, turning the V8 model into something focused.

So we’ve come to Portugal, a country where people still wander along the side of the road carrying bundles of sticks as if the last 100 years never happened, to test the new Vantage. But Aston’s design department is doing the testing first. It’s pushing forward, breaking free of the mold that characterized the early 2000s cars. Some trademark motifs remain: The grille can trace its shape to the Two Litre Sports of the late 1940s.

The door opens, as in other Astons, with a slightly skyward arc and with little effort. You drop into a low-mounted, Alcantara-wrapped bucket and stare up at the windshield—you feel like a child trying Dad’s hot seat for the first time, desperately hoping to get a peek at the hood unfurling toward the horizon. Where big brother DB11 goes for restrained elegance, clearly aimed at the more mature buyer, the Vantage’s interior gives off angry sports-car vibes.

You can thank the two BorgWarner turbochargers nestled cosily between the banks of the V8—what engineers call a hot-vee setup—for the way the Aston hauls. This layout makes for a short induction tract that keeps lag to a minimum, although the throttle response can’t hold a candle to the old naturally aspirated V8’s. Those turbochargers also dull the clarity, if not the outright volume, of the noises filtering through to the cabin. The copyright belongs to roadandtrack.