Aston Martin Vantage review: It’s loud, fast and beautiful

Aston Martin has made a Vantage that is heart-achingly desirable. I’m no businessman but even I can see that’s probably a mistake.

Aston Martin Vantage.

There’s a time and a place for darkness. When you are stargazing, for instance, or trying to get to sleep. But at all other times I like to see what I’m doing and where I’m going – especially when I’m at the wheel of Aston Martin’s latest Vantage.

Sadly, this is not possible because it’s the first car I’ve driven with “mood” headlamps. They provide exactly the right amount of light for a candlelit bath, but nowhere near enough if you are coming up to a tricky left-right switchback at 10pm in the rain.

It’s been a while since I moaned about poor headlamps. It’s one of those things – like wipers lifting clear of the windscreen – that the car industry gets right these days. But something’s gone awry with the Vantage because they are abysmal.

There’s another issue, too. The interior is nowhere near as horrible as in the DB11, or the DBS for that matter, but there’s no getting away from the fact that the Mercedes switchgear and display screen are from the generation before last. And the steering wheel is squared off.

And that’s it. Apart from these gripes, this Aston is heart-achingly desirable. It’s the looks, mainly. Unlike the old Vantage, which was a pretty little thing, this is really quite aggressive. And it’s not so little, either; it’s 8cm longer and 8cm wider than before.

Under the bonnet, there’s a 4-litre twin-turbocharged 375kW AMG V8 – Mercedes is a strategic partner these days – that sits almost laughably far back. The result is a perfect distribution of weight between the front and rear axles, so that this new Vantage feels so much more alive and dainty and responsive than the old one. It feels serious. It even has a clutch-based active torque-vectoring electronic rear differential. Quite a thing for a car company that, in living memory, was making its vehicles using hammers. And quite a thing on the road, too, because it makes the back end ever so playful. This car is serious then. But also fun.

And God, it goes. There seems to be some debate about how much it weighs – maybe Aston Martin keeps the scales in a darkened room – but it doesn’t really matter because when you mash the throttle into the carpet, you are suddenly a long way away.

If you’re in the Track setting when you do the mashing, you’ll be even further away and everyone within 200m will be staggering around in the street with blood pouring from their ears, as deaf as you are blind at night. In “nutter bastard” mode this car is really, really loud and it’s not the familiar AMG rumble either. It’s just raw, naked noise. With added snaps of ballistic popping and banging from the exhaust.

For sheer excitement the Aston is a match for the Porsche 911. And it’ll get you to your destination way faster because people like Astons. They let you out of junctions in a way that just doesn’t happen when you’re in a Porsche.

Happily, the Vantage is not an uncouth racer all the time. In normal mode it bumbles along quite nicely and, praise be to the Lord, it isn’t even all that crashy.

When I first heard that Aston was going after Nürburgring lap times and Porsche’s jugular, I thought it would make something hard and uncompromising. But it hasn’t. On a long run, the Vantage is a proper GT car. Two seats. Useable boot. No undue stresses and strains.

I thought this was a tremendous car. But I wonder if it isn’t a bit too tremendous. As I see it, the problem Aston has is that to the untrained eye, its cars are all quite similar. To make matters worse, the most expensive model – the DBS Superleggera – starts at $517,000 plus on-road costs. And it doesn’t feel much better than the $368,000 DB11, which in turn doesn’t feel much better than a Vantage.

So with the Vantage, Aston Martin has made a car that’s not only better than any equivalent Porsche but also better, all things considered, than its own big brother. I’m no businessman but even I can see that’s probably a mistake.

Aston Martin Vantage

Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V8 (375kW/685Nm)

Average fuel 10.5 litres per 100km

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive

Price: $299,950

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars