Aston Martin Vantage

FIRST DRIVE Clean-sheet design transforms sports car into a 911 beater

- Steve Fowler

THERE was a time when Aston Martin could barely manage to launch a new car every few years. It wasn’t that long ago, yet the British brand has turned a big corner under the stewardship of Brit boss Andy Palmer.

With the company’s finances in good order and hot on the heels of the DB11 comes the most important car of them all: the new Aston Martin Vantage.

Priced from £120,900 before you plunder the tempting and deep options roster, this new Vantage has a tough adversary in the Porsche 911 Turbo. But while there are plenty of price, power and performance similarities, the Aston goes about things in a different way; a typically British way.

Let’s start with the design. It looks stunning from behind, with a majestically rising rear spoiler and delightfully detailed lights. It’s a little plainer at the shark-nosed (and slightly Lightning McQueen-esque) front, but proportionally it’s absolutely perfect. With its nose to the floor, Aston describes this car as a hunter. That’s opposed to the more graceful DB11, which sits with its nose more skyward. It’s certainly mean and muscular, with clever aerodynamics; some you can see and some you can’t.

Under the skin, the Vantage shares much with the DB11. That includes the fabulous, Mercedes-sourced 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8; tweaked and tuned in-house for what Aston feels are the right power characteristics. The noise is a little less shouty than in an AMG, too.