First Drive: 2012 Aston Martin V8 Vantage
Aston Martin has taken the bits that make its Vantage S so brilliant and fitted them to the entry-level V8 Vantage – with a better-value price point thrown in for good measure. Aston Martin has sat quietly back up to now while Porsche has been busy launching the new 991 911. The latest iteration of the world’s most famous sports car, the 991 has courted plaudits, praise and not a little procrastination for good measure. Blindingly brilliant it is, yes, and a worthy new chapter in the German icon’s lineage. But is it also somehow actually too good?
Specifically, are its abilities so all-encompassing that it comes across as a bit too cool and collected? Is its new electrically-assisted power steering now too calm and becoming, compared to the chattering magnificence of 911s yore? The general consensus up to now is that the car’s overall stupendous magnificence is enough to eradicate any concerns. But, nevertheless, there is another way to sports car satisfaction.
And Aston Martin is here to show it. The V8 Vantage, its entry-level two-seater sports car, has been updated for 2011. Key to it is a round of chassis changes first seen on the Vantage S: spring and damper rate tuning, bigger two-piece cast iron discs grabbed by six-piston calipers, 10mm wider tyres which give a bigger contact patch area and also make the steering more responsive. To further enhance this latter aspect, there’s gets a new steering column installation (derived from the firm’s upper range cars), re-valved pump and a quicker ratio of 15:1 instead of 17:1.
The styling has been updated as well, to eye-catching effect. At the front, there is a cleaner nose with a deeper chin spoiler splitter that gives visual focus the old car lacked. See them alongside one another and the effect is pronounced, with the old model looking surprisingly dated in comparison.
At the side, more heavily sculpted sills visually plant the V8 Vantage on the road much better, while it enjoys the bigger spoiler of the Vantage S at the rear for a neat retro ducktail effect. Set within the rear bumper is a new all-black venturi panel too.
Overall, the changes may sound minor – and Aston Martin has really underplayed them in its press material for the new car – but the effect in the aluminium and composite metal is striking. This is a pretty car made even more alluring.
It even has a newfound price cut for good measure: in the UK, it costs £84,995, just a few thousand pounds more than a 911 Carrera S – with 20ps extra thrown in to sweeten the deal. Aston Martin really has focused the V8 Vantage, to once again make it a compelling on-paper rival to the famous 911. Oh, and the Vantage S? Well, it still sits above the V8 Vantage and, although the base car now has its suspension and styling details, it retain an on-paper advantage by coming with Sportshift II paddleshift gearbox, sat nav, sports exhaust and carbonfibre exterior detailing as standard.
Climbing in to the V8 Vantage is the usual Aston Martin process of fiddling with the flip-out door handles, marvelling at how the semi-gullwing doors open upwards, and then dropping down onto stiff seats sculpted like a sports trainer into a rather familiar cabin. Aston Martin hasn’t made any changes here, so it remains as alluring, and as frustrating, as ever.
It’s familiar from other Aston Martins, of course. The basic architecture of the dashboard, the centre console layout and the dials are all clearly related to the Virage, the DB9, the DBS. Even the steering wheel, and its upright and closely-set position, is familiar – not surprising, given how the steering column and steering system are shared with Aston’s upper-range supercars.
The V8 Vantage trait of compactness is also present. This is a narrow cockpit, with a strongly rectangular-shaped driver space that sees legs positioned straight ahead, giving strong racecar cues. There’s a small shelf behind the front seats, and a huge 300-litre boot hidden beneath the rear hatchback behind that, but stowage isn’t its strong suit. The ergonomic delights of the new 991 911 also don’t factor, despite the newfound clarity of Aston’s revised Garmin sat nav.
No, the V8 Vantage prefers to be a very traditional sports car and trade style over ease of use, as witnessed by the delectable and hard to fathom reverse-flick of the spidery-marked dials, the unintuitiveness of the central starter key (hold it down to crank the starter motor, for if you let go, it stops cranking – and you have to then take it out and put it back in again to restart the process…) and the 1970s retro touch of the fly-off parking brake. None of these gripes matter, as it’s gorgeous enough to win over anyone.
And then there’s the noise when you do start it – all mechanical growl whose roots are in actual engineering rather than months spent creating it from nothing in the artificial sound booth. The V8 Vantage signals very clearly what sort of a car it is from the off. And in many respects, it’s a very different car indeed to the new Porsche 991 911.
Two aspects immediately strike you. One, the steering is, at low speeds, weighty. There’s a pronounced firmness to it that seems very sports car, very purposeful, and which means you feel like you’re involved from the off. And two, the gearchange: Aston lets you now choose the seven-speed Sportshift II automated manual gearbox on the V8 Vantage: it gains an extra ratio over the old Sportshift, for a closer ratio spread, and is taken straight from the Vantage S where it’s the only gearbox available.
But standard on the V8 Vantage is the familiar manual six-speed, and it’s worth banking the cost of the Sportshift II option for the several ways in which it adds so much to the car’s character. For starters, the stubby lever moves a wonderful gearshift, all tight mechanical prevision and snap-shift accuracy. It also somehow feels more genuine to be so closely involved like this, rather than directing things vial steering wheel paddles, while even a flaw that Porsche would be horrified at – a large degree of rear transaxle gearbox chatter at slow speed – somehow only adds to the V8 Vantage’s character.
Not least because the engine is such a peach too – and again, this is with its perceived deficiencies and all. It gets no more power for 2012, so retains its 426ps peak power, at a suspiciously peaky-sounding 7,300rpm. Maximum torque also remains weedy alongside it, with the 4.7-litre motor punching out 346lb ft at, yes, a similarly heady 5,000rpm. If you’ve read the stats, the nature of this engine will come as no surprise. You have to rev it. Hard.
There’s little of interest below 4,000rpm, but the onset of power does arrive with an intriguing extra dose of V8 blare. This motor isn’t about noise like that though, and certainly isn’t about OTT barks, growls and howls. The stark noises of a Jaguar XKR-S or AMG Mercedes are not on the cards here, for Aston Martin prefers a more cultured mechanical backdrop for its motor. Engineering principals feature heavily, so what you here is the noise of the engine at work, rotational effects and all, rather than any generated overlay of exhaust roar on top. It’s unique and very satisfying (oh, and not unlike the way an old 911’s engine noise was all flat-six gnash and gnarl rather than fluttering exhausts…).
Even so, the engine isn’t the real story here. It’s fast, yes, with 62mph arriving in 4.9 seconds, and working those 420 horses generates real high-rev vibrancy (and hang the effects on fuel economy, which is already more than 50 per cent worse than a 911 Carrera S…). But the big deal about the latest V8 Vantage is manner in which it travels down the road. And the key to it, as you may have suspected from the first turn of the wheel, is the steering.
Everything that a standard-setting sports car steering system should provide is in evidence. It’s packed with reassuring weight, that varies minutely according to load. It squirms and writhes gently in your hands as surfaces and road campers change, to drill you right into the messages their profiles are telling you. It turns in with startling accuracy to the tiniest and most measured fingertip inputs, letting you position the car by clipping individual pebbles sitting on apexes. It even now has genuine sports car speed and vim thanks to the faster 2012 steering ratio.
This is the contrast with the 911, whose more modern steering system doesn’t have this level of vibrancy. Aston Martin takes a very old-school approach, accepts the fact it will sometimes squirm a bit too much on oddly cambered roads, maybe even prove too weighty for some at times, because the overall gains in feel are so gloriously illuminating. It’s a brilliant steering system.
As is the blend of ride and handling the firm has created in the chassis. Through what feels like a very committed and, again, engineering-led process of careful development, Aston Martin has struck an uncommonly satisfying blend of compliance and control: it uses suspension travel to run smooth over undulating B-roads, yet never chips or chops in reaction to bumps or undulations. Soft enough to absorb, taut enough to remain in control.
10mm wider tyres give more grip, particularly at the front end, which has whip-snap turn in bite and a real confidence when you lean on it hard. Understeer should never be an issue. The mechanical balance is impeccable too: lean on the accelerator and challenge rear end traction to feel beautifully natural neutrality.
It’s special and spot-on. Even the slightly stiff and choppy ride at lower speeds, plus too much tyre roar on certain surfaces, are not an issue. As with the steering, Aston has figured these are small compromises that are worth it for the greater good of how it drives. It’s right.
That’s the brilliant thing about the new 2012 V8 Vantage. Aston has understood what was needed to make it perfect, and quietly worked at engineering this in. Not artificially overlaying it, or working by committee to make sure every aspect is up to a defined high standard, but by using good old fashioned engineering graft – and the minds of some real engineering talent – to strike a just-so setup that makes this a brilliant sports car.
It’s now a glorious alternative to the brilliant Porsche 991 911, and brilliant in its own right for very different reasons. If you want magnificence across the board, and the sense of inbred perfection that the world’s most famous sports car now brings, the 911 is for you. With the Aston Martin V8 Vantage though, you now have a highly charismatic alternative that floods you with sensations in a very different way.
It’s organic, faithful, detailed, honed and, yes, in some ways imperfect. It doesn’t have the modernity of the Porsche and can’t boast its jaw-dropping range of 21st century brilliance. But it can speak to you in a very real and rewarding way and, in becoming a more complete car than it has ever been, is now more desirable and alluring than it has ever been. With the 2012 V8 Vantage, Aston Martin has given us a sports car great.