2024 Aston Martin Vantage review

Newton explains that while the potential was there, it still required new cylinder heads and bigger turbos, along with camshafts and intake manifolding to make it happen. Then it needed 30 per cent more cooling air into the bigger radiators and a lot of careful calibration. Not the work of the moment, then.

What he and Long elect not to point out is that outside of the Ferrari Roma, most rivals in this sector come with at least the option of four-wheel drive. In this case, the 656bhp Vantage is channelling everything it’s got into the rear wheels. Hum.

To cope with all that grunt, the aluminium chassis has been completely re-engineered from its double wishbone front and multi-link rear suspension, to its bracing points. There’s new upper and lower cross bracing for the front and rear, and new damper mounts to improve the accuracy of the wheel response. It took a bit of convincing for Newton’s team to get the Bilstein dampers they specified, but they promise an unprecedented level of accuracy and control available in five drive modes from Track down through two Sport settings, to Wet and Cross Country, too. Traction control is adjustable in diminishing tranches from one to eight, where the rear end gets more and more lairy, to nine where for the brave or foolhardy, everything is off.

Michelin has been working hard on its Pilot Sport 5S covers with AMG and Aston Martin to develop a bespoke compound and structure and the Vantage’s 21-inch wheels proudly wear those special tyres.

Apart from the monumental amount of software calibration, the other change is a five per cent lower final drive to help with that ‘crescendo effect.’

Vantage? Let me give you the pocket history. The name first appeared as a hepped-up 125bhp version of the DB2 in 1950 and there Vantage stayed, as a tuning badge like Mopar in the States, GTI in Germany, or omologato in Italy, until 1972 when Vantage was slapped on the back of the last of the six-cylinder DBS models, whereupon the name became a byword for basic or entry level.

It was all-change in 1977, though, when it was attached to the Vantage V8, which turned out to be the world’s fastest production road car – 170mph since you ask.

The Vantage V600 and the DB7 Vantage followed, but it was 2003 when we first saw the AMV8 Vantage as a concept at the Detroit Auto Show and 2005 when it went on sale.

Priced at a whisker under £80,000, that two-seater did good things for the Aston badge, though it was oversold and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2007 and the financial crash saw dealers stuck with many unsold examples. The V8 continued in production until 2017 and the V12-engined version until 2018, when Aston introduced its replacement.

Andy Palmer, a previous CEO at Aston Martin, called the Vantage name ‘incredibly evocative,’ though it’s debatable just how well-known Vantage is, even in Aston circles. Palmer was talking at the 2018 launch of the all-new Vantage, broadly based on the previous year’s DB11 aluminium chassis, but 274mm shorter on a 101mm shorter wheelbase. The styling was controversial, particularly the grille which looked like Mr Potato Head’s moustache. It was this car which confirmed the Mercedes-AMG link and introduced the 503bhp/505lb ft, ‘hot turbo’, M177, 4-litre V8, but without the expensive Mercedes transaxle, using instead a ZF eight-speed torque-converter automatic.

Priced at £121,000, the 2018 Vantage felt like something that wanted to chase you around for a while before taking a bite out of you. The Vantage F1 Edition, which followed two years later, was much improved as well it needed to be since it spent a while as the Formula 1 pace car. It did good business for Aston Martin, especially in the US, though the choice of colours restricted its appeal mainly to those who wear trainers with a suit.

Back to this Vantage. There’s been a total transformation in its coachwork and it is now a cracking looking car, especially in the F1 green where even the reflective highlighting around the grille and the sills only serves to highlight the lines. There’s an assured balance between old and new, though the egg-crate grille will have you puzzling over where you might have seen it before. Frank Feeley’s DB3S perhaps? Maybe the V12 Zagato? Either way it looks absolutely right.

In the cabin there’s a revamp of the trim and upholstery, which doesn’t give you much more space, but certainly makes the interior feel more plush, particularly the way the door panels sweep into the dashboard. There’s a digital instrument binnacle and a central touchscreen, though both are incorporated into the dash rather than resembling iPads hammered into the top of it. It’s good that Aston ploughs its own furrow with this sort of touchy, feely stuff, but in this case, it feels as though clarity has been the victim of style. Apparently, there was a gear indicator somewhere in the dash; I never once saw it. On the plus side, however, the satnav was visible and clear and the push buttons weren’t too hard to fathom out.

Out on the track, it’s certainly fast, which is just as you’d expect given the power and performance claims, but there’s control there too and a wonderful slug of mid-range torque which has you powering out of the turns like an evening zephyr. The gear change is fast and positive, a bit too fast and positive in Track mode, where a brutal snap into the next ratio raises alarm in those with an iota of mechanical sympathy.

But the whole is a lot less scary than Newton has billed it. Particularly the steering, which has a gentle response and light but lovely weighting, with an uncanny on-centre response. Steering is so much more than a set of levers to turn the wheels and in the black-magic arts of direction change, Newton’s team are up there at grand vizier level.

You instinctively know how the car’s going to react to the first movement of the steering wheel. The nose rolls slightly and the trajectory changes round the small of your back and you’re off again. Within a lap the Vantage has inspired enough confidence to have you howling those big 21-inch Michelins, within two laps the tyres are sliding and you’re powering out of the turn, rear boots smoking, steering held in a bit of opposite lock. And this from someone who is rubbish at skids: it’s just that sort of car.

And the engine plays its part. Freed from playing the comedy villain in an AMG, the 4-litre mill moves from a Ray Winston growl to an Idris Elba bark; insistent and urgent reports on eight large pistons bouncing in their bores.

Dialled back to Sport + the Vantage feels like a hillclimb car, with a bit more body movement than a circuit racer, for location, traction and agility. Later Newton says he prefers the setting on Monteblanco’s undulating Tarmac and I do, too.

While Aston’s steel brakes are usually pretty good, the optional carbon-ceramics are eye popping. After six fast laps the pedal was getting longer as the fluid warmed, but the stopping remained dependable, progressive with just the right amount of grab at the top of the movement.

So that’s all good on the track, but that seldom makes for a fine road car. In this case, however, prepare to be pleasantly surprised. First the ride, which in spite of the barely-there side walls of the 21-inch tyres, is supple and accommodating even over the broken pavement in Spanish villages. Those Bilsteins control the body with a fierce discipline, but never at the attendant cost of your dental work fixings.

They’d swapped the carbon fibre buckets for proper leather chairs in the road cars and they’re certainly worth consideration, being hardly less supportive but allowing much easier egress and loads more comfort.

On the road you use the torque to draft the Vantage along, going fast, but with an unhurried sense of control. In normal mode the ZF will take its time to change down for an overtake, but you can drive round it with the steering wheel paddles and for the most part you’d wonder why you would want a manual gearbox in this car.

And you can push the nose through a turn with nothing less than absolute confidence as the precision of the steering and brakes compliment each other. Perhaps it’s the finely wrought control response, the chassis balance or this car’s relaxed nature, but it almost creates an intuition about the road ahead. I know this sounds weird beyond reason, but on a couple of occasions something unexpected happened on the road and almost before we saw it, a down change and a flick of the wrists left the hazard far behind. In one case, it was an undramatic brake to a stop before the errant dog had even appeared, which garnered a friendly and relieved wave from the owner. Again, it’s that sort of car. You feel proud to drive it well.

And it’s comfortable, too. I was sorely tempted to ask if we could drive it home even though I knew what the answer would be.

As they say, if you have to ask you probably can’t afford it, but the purchase price starts at £165,000 which isn’t too bad considering the Ferrari Roma, Mercedes-AMG GT and Porsche 911 Turbo opposition. Oh, and against a WLTP figure of 23.3mpg, we achieved a figure of 18.7mpg, which means the 17.2-gallon tank will give you a range of just over 300 miles.

‘Engineered for real drivers,’ is the launch kicker for this new Vantage, which is the sort of nonsense that marketing folk come up with when they drink too many skinny lattes in glass-fronted offices.

Nevertheless, I found that this car made me smile in a way recent Astons have failed to. The extra power is very welcome of course, but it’s the dialling back of daft design flourishes and a return to understated and gorgeous shapes, along with the sheer bloody hard work in calibrating chassis and engine control, which is far more important. My spies at The Aston tell me this car is considered something of a return to form and a back-to-the-future moment for the company.

In the long climb back to profitability and return on investment, this new Vantage seems like an excellent place to start.

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