ORANGE RUSH

The new Vantage has the power and speed to take on the mighty Porsche 911 Turbo S, but is it all about the numbers or does it have the ability to engage and entertain too?

-  JAMES TAYLOR

THERE ARE SOME BIG NUMBERS ASSOCIATED WITH the new Aston Martin Vantage. Really big. 656bhp. 590lb ft.

202mph. And a £165,000 entry price, taking this once-junior Aston into thoroughly senior territory.

Is this a by-the-numbers car, though? An injection of power and torque to grab the headlines, a spring clean for the interior, neat facelift on the outside, and that's as far as it goes? Meeting the new Vantage in person, you quickly sense that's not the case. evo's first briefing on the car (in issue 319) suggested Aston Martin's engineering team had been given the freedom and budget-to make this renewed Vantage the very best it can be.

Not so much renewed as reborn. As we're talked around the car at its launch base near Seville by director of vehicle performance Simon Newton and head of product strategy Alex Long, you can sense their pride in the car. This has clearly been a No Compromises project, with practically every area reconsidered and rehoned.

And, encouragingly, despite the attention-grabbing numbers, there's been just as much toil over making it fun and engaging at regular road speeds as there has into reaching numerical performance metrics. "This is the most agile, precise, dynamic, enjoyable sports car we've ever done,' Long says, with conviction.

'In benchmarking, you find a lot of cars don't come alive until you're going really quick,' adds Newton. 'Dexterity and feedback at low speed, too, have been key for this car.' Changes beneath the surface encompass structure, suspension, powertrain, electronic architecture and far more besides, but suffice to say they go much further than a skin-deep facelift. And for what it's worth, to my eyes at least, the Vantage's new skin looks fantastic. This isn't a design magazine, of course, and you'll make your own judgement, but in real life even more than in pictures, I find the Vantage a compelling thing to behold.