Appalachian Outlaws

Into Kentucky with a trio of troublemakers to determineoh, hell, were just doing this because its fun.

- Jared Gall

Like all good mountain roads, the byways squirming through the Appalachian foothills southeast of Richmond, Kentucky, look as if they were laid out by someone trying to scribble over something else. They barrel helter-skelter across the region’s topography, following meandering rivers and tap-dancing along ridgelines. They thread their way past the occasional derelict car, the sort a goat would be proud to stand atop, but otherwise blissfully few domiciles. They are, in other words, the perfect place to put three 500-hp sports cars to the test.

We were not surprised by how much we liked the new Aston Martin Vantage at first contact. We liked the last V-8–powered one so much that we ranked it ahead of a Porsche 911 in its first comparison test [“Working Exotics,” March 2006]. But then Aston let it wither on the vine, then let the vine wither, then, when the whole vineyard was nothing but memories of dust, the Brits bolted a dogleg seven-speed manual behind a 565-hp V-12 and charged more than $200,000 for it.

This, then, is a refreshing change of pace. The Vantage is all-new for 2019, riding on a bonded-aluminum structure that relies more on stamped panels than the blocky extrusions that formed the VH architecture of the past for a more space-efficient design. (Though there’s no glovebox.) Its old naturally aspirated engine lineup woefully outdated in the age of turbocharging, wee independent Aston Martin took the easy—and smart—way out and bought a 503-hp twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 from Mercedes-Benz. Its 505 pound-feet of torque constitutes a 46 percent increase from the old V-8 Vantages. The car starts at $153,081, but this one’s options bill carries it to $186,086.