ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE

Latest two-seater unequivocally shows where Aston is heading because it’s sportier, more powerful and more expensive. But a key question remains: is it any good?

- MATT PRIOR

With 656bhp rather than the 503bhp of its predecessor, Aston Martin's latest Vantage has moved on to a new performance plane. It was a serious sports car before but the comprehensive overhaul has, as with the DB12 we were so impressed by recently, significantly shifted its capabilities. Its price too: this is a £165,000 car before options.

In appearance, it is mildly tweaked, enhanced, more muscly and 30mm wider now, at 1981mm across the body. The chassis, a blend of aluminium extrusions and castings, is a similar architecture to the DB12's, though this car is shorter of wheelbase (2692mm) and overall length (4496mm) because it's a sports car, not a grand tourer. It's Aston's most focused series model, for now, but one might expect a more hardcore variant later. This, though, says Aston's director of vehicle performance, Simon Newton, is a road car rather than a track car.

The chassis is more rigid. Aston makes no claims for overall torsional rigidity but points to where local stiffnesses have been increased: there are new sheer panels front and rear, the front longerons are tied together better, and the front top mounting point brace is both lighter and stiffer and there's one at the rear now too.

Aside from the enhanced 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine (see box, p27), hardware includes an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission with a 5%-shorter final drive ("we liked the ratios", says Newton), an electric power steering system with a former NVH coupling in the steering column removed to increase precision, rear-drive via an electronically controlled limited-slip differential, and double-wishbone suspension all around with coil springs and Bilstein adaptive dampers with a hugely wider bandwidth (said to be up 500%), and bespoke Michelin Pilot Sport S5 tyres (275/35 R21 at the front and 325/30 R21 at the rear).