The New Aston Martin Vantage Is Here To Pick A Fight With The 911

We’ve been waiting a while for this, haven’t we? Aston Martin’s V8 Vantage has been with us for 12 years now, but the 4.7-litre V8-powered sports car is at last being granted a well-earned retirement. The replacement is more striking, sharper, and much, much faster.

How much faster? Well, mash your foot on the right-hand pedal fast enough, and the Mercedes-AMG-sourced 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 will put severe stress on your internal organs as 0-62mph comes and goes in just 3.6 seconds. Far quicker than the old V8-powered Vantage, and faster even than the V12 Vantage S. The top speed meanwhile is 195mph.

It’s made possible by that aforementioned V8 putting out 503bhp and 505lb ft of torque, with a reasonably modest 1530kg (dry) of car to punt around. That power is sent to the rear wheels exclusively, via a transaxle-mounted ZF eight-speed automatic gearbox. Yep, no more ‘robotised manual’ shenanigans going on here, and for the first time in an Aston Martin, there’s an electronically-controlled rear differential. The diff can go from open to completely locked in mere milliseconds, Aston Martin says.

The Vantage’s platform is broadly the same bonded aluminium affair used for the DB11, but 70 per cent of the car is all-new. It’s just under 30cm shorter than a DB11, and a smidge shorter than a Porsche 911. Weight distribution is the ideal 50:50 balance.

In terms of aero, there’s plenty of rather obvious bits like a downforce generating “upswept” rear deck and side gills that eject high-pressure air from the front wheel arches, but the most fascinating elements are arguably the ones you can’t see. The car’s speed bump-troubling front splitter sends air under the car, where several “fences” direct the flow both for cooling and to feed the rear diffuser.

As with the DB11, the Vantage’s cabin is littered with tech borrowed from Mercedes-Benz as part of Gaydon’s technical partnership with the German firm. Given how clunky the outgoing car’s infotainment system is, that’s no bad thing. The interior also sports lashings of Alcantara, and as you can see from the image above, plenty in the way of personalisation options.

It’s better in almost every way (with perhaps engine noise being the exception, although it does still make a jolly nice din) than the old car, but it is quite a bit more expensive. It’ll set you back £120,900, getting on for £25k more than the Vantage AMR Pro run-out model.

It’s on sale now, with first deliveries kicking off during 2018’s second quarter.