2025 Aston Martin Vantage Roadster | PH Review

The Roadster is back with 665hp and a point to prove

Given where Aston Martin is at the moment - and where we’ve been told it’s going - it’s tempting to look past the launch of the more familiar derivatives, and imagine what the firm might do to spice them up a little later in the lifecycle. The new DBX S revealed in April is just the start; doing a better (and more profitable) job of delivering differentiated niche fillers has been decreed the new order at Gaydon, and your mortgage could be safely wagered on a go-faster version of the latest Vantage appearing before long. But it would be a mistake to stare impatiently at the horizon when Aston has gone to so much trouble updating the standard model, and supplying a Roadster variant that it reckons suffers from no discernible compromise versus the coupe.

This is the coupe, you’ll recall, that was uncorked last year thanks to the lively prospect of an additional 155hp from its Mercedes-sourced 4.0-litre V8. The reworking of the chassis to accommodate 665hp and 590lb ft of torque at the rear axle unquestionably resulted in a better Vantage - now, says its maker, customers can enjoy the same output in a Roadster that benefits from all the lessons learned in side-by-side development, alongside the always welcome option of doing away with the roof in 6.8 seconds. Aston suggests this is the quickest ‘fully automatic deployable roof mechanism’ you can currently buy. No less significantly, it claims the same 202mph top speed and 3.5-second-to-60mph time for the convertible as for the coupe.

This despite the 60kg or so that the Roadster has added to the scales, the difference attributed to the new lightweight Z-fold hood and the structural fettling required for it to be there. Aston is still disinclined to advertise a with-fluids kerbweight for the latest model - perhaps because it compares unfavourably with the current Porsche 911 - although the slender size of the delta is impressive enough, as is the 50:50 weight distribution (which is said to be finely balanced enough for it to become 49:51 with the roof down). At any rate, a beady eye on the scales has resulted in innovations such as using ‘castrusion’ to manufacture the roll-over protection system, a process that uses elements of both casting and extrusion to achieve the desired result.

If we grade the overall result purely on how desirable the Roadster looks, no second lap of the car is required with the hood stowed. Perhaps the shortness of the Vantage (and its fattened-up footprint) denies it the kind of proportions that would confer hand-biting beauty, but the convertible is easily sensational enough in its own right to draw an appreciative crowd. The spell is somewhat undone by returning the roof to the header, it being no substitute for the coupe’s raked silhouette - though the advantage in presence and kerbside dynamism over a 911 cabriolet, always aesthetically hamstrung by its rear seats, is substantial. Put it this way: you’ll never need to explain to anyone why you opted for the soft-top.

Nor will you need to make excuses for the Vantage’s interior. As you’d expect, everything that was fixed in the coupe last year migrates to the Roadster, and short of some now familiar gripes (mostly to do with the remaining elements that are shared with Mercedes), it is a nicely laid out and inviting place to spend time in. Probably it is telling that Aston continues to favour Google Maps over its homegrown sat-nav when it comes to supplying route directions - although if the firm’s prompt delivery of a physical shortcut button to extinguish the car’s most annoying safety features (surely a direct result of customer feedback) is anything to go on, you’d have to assume someone is already beavering away at a solution to some of the infotainment’s more obvious issues.

Software refinements are much easier to implement than hardware ones, so it’s pleasing to find the Roadster no less joined-up than the coupe. Austria did its best to mimic UK springtime by pissing down all morning, allowing plenty of time for the convertible to prove itself on the more mundane end of the usability scale. Crucially, there is just about the right kind of quietness under the eight-layer roof, and no little consistency to the ride quality. This is administered by the same Bilstein DTX adaptive dampers as in the coupe, calibrated in much the same way, although Aston has softened the transmission mounts in pursuit of just the right kind of flow. The compromise it has located feels appropriate in a convertible still very serious about showcasing its sports car credentials.

Certainly, you won’t forget that the Vantage is a) exclusively rear-drive or b) very powerful, especially if there’s standing water around - but thanks to the ever-attentive e-diff and the six-axis sensor suite powering it, the Roadster never reminds you in a way that seems nervous or ungainly. It commands respect, yet dispenses it too; only a meandering tendency at slow speeds to translate gradient changes as a new direction of travel mitigates the experience of contentedly idling everywhere, waiting for the rain to stop.

When it does, any trace of intransigence is easy to forgive in a car that becomes thrillingly alive with any sort of pace under the bespoke compound of its Michelin PS5 S tyres - a trait thanks in no small part to the way the Roadster responds to small adjustments at the wheel. In the build-up, Aston talked at length about continuing to foreground the relationship between driver and car, and that plays out on the road where an appreciation of what each corner of the Vantage is doing, and your position at the hub of it all, is the all-important factor in building the confidence to take ever greater liberties with the V8’s output.

Squeezing it on, it must be said, is a non-stop pleasure. Aston well understands that the V8 is a distinguishing feature here and the Vantage’s accelerator marshals its involvement splendidly. We said this recently of the DB12, but what a delight to interact with a pedal tasked with the deceptively simple job of being a faucet for heavy-duty combustion. Having finally been given permission to crack open the code that governs the ubiquitous 4.0-litre unit, Aston has become obsessed with achieving a level of response best described as explosive - and yet the scale of the surge is always chosen by you; there is no underlying sense of turbocharged swell, just a large V8 doing evocative, V8-type things.

Unsurprisingly, with the sound of it now mingled with hair-ruffling airflow, the Roadster eclipses even the musclebound coupe for theatrical excess. Assuming the roof is down, you’ll spend an awful lot of time with the eight-speed transmission in manual mode, shifting feverishly and often redundantly between second, third, and fourth. If the opportunities to locate the exact position of the bulkhead seldom present themselves on the public highway, it’s impossible to feel shortchanged by a V8 made to seem so rewarding across its rev range. And while you’re rarely under any illusions about the amount of mass being hustled through any given switchback or how hard the suspension is sometimes made to work, the latest Vantage chassis is a terrific enabler. Chiefly of fun, but also the kind of consistency that makes eight-tenths effort seem endlessly gratifying.

Perhaps a suitably senior 911 cabriolet is easier to lean into, and that bit more communicative - not least because it would be lighter and therefore leaner in its body control - but the Roadster requires no mode beyond its default setting to convince you of its standout qualities. Predictably, it feels more throttle-led than any 911 save for a GT3, and not just in the luridness achievable with a traction control system that can be switched out by stages, but also in the inimitable sense of balance provided by its front-engined, rear-drive configuration. Much like the coupe, you won’t need any degree of corrective lock to revel in the sheer Vantage-ness of the new Roadster.

Set against its achievements, what limits there are on this bandwidth are relatively minor. You will have to put up with moderately less boot space for the entire length of ownership, but hardly ever will you suffer the usual pitfalls of a roofless Aston. Perhaps there was the occasional cabin intrusion the coupe might have batted away more comprehensively (and from memory, it is better suited to the sterner parameters of Sport+), but any genuine tremor is always notable more for its rarity than its seriousness. Or that was the impression on the unbroken enamel that is Austrian roads; the UK will inevitably provide a better barometer for any trade-off. For now, in one respect at least, it ranks higher than its sibling: the coupe tends to suffer in direct comparison with very senior 911s, but with less weight given to handling nuance among convertible buyers and more emphasis placed on looks, style, sound and a very subjective sort of specialness, the V8-powered, Aston-badged Roadster towers above the convertible version of its arch nemesis in the imagination. Even when it starts at a very real £175k.

SPECIFICATION | 2025 ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE ROADSTER

Engine: 3,982cc, twin-turbocharged V8
Transmission: 8-speed automatic, rear-drive with e-diff
Power (hp): 665@6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 590@2,000-5,000rpm
0-62mph: 3.5sec
Top speed: 202mph
Weight: 1,665kg ('minimum dry mass')
MPG: 23.0 (WLTP combined)
CO2: 279g/km
Price: £175,000 (starting price)

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wistec1

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