Truth be told, I was a bit disappointed when Aston Martin unveiled the DB12 last year. For the first substantively new car introduced under the watchful eye and helpfully deep pockets of Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll to be a facelifted DB11 seemed a bit underwhelming. As it’d turn out though, the DB12 was a monumental leap over the old car, fixing the bits that didn’t work (mainly the cabin interior) while incrementally improving everything else. So when the covers came off the new Vantage earlier this year, all the signs pointed towards another great Aston.
Certainly, it’s a darn sight prettier than the old one. Admittedly, I never took issue with the 2018 car’s styling and found it far better resolved than the frumpy DB11, but I understand why people found the grille to be a touch fishy. The 2020 facelift improved things with a more conventional mouth, although what Aston’s come up with for the latest version is far more cohesive. It still features much the same silhouette as the old car and details like the duck tail brake lights and diffuser remain largely unchanged. But the larger headlights, reprofiled wing vents and a quartet of exhausts that are finally in proportion with the rest of the back end all contribute to a look that’s as imposing as it is elegant. If the new Vanquish has arguably toppled it as the best-looking model in the current lineup, the Vantage runs it a close second.
Thankfully, Aston been far more ruthless with the interior. There simply wasn’t anything worth saving from the 2018 car’s cabin, because it was a morass of pointless buttons, infuriating tech and a downright ugly design that just wasn't up to scratch. Now, as you may have heard, there’s a much sleeker centre console with just the right amount of switchgear (which still requires a physical press to activate), beautiful rotary dials and a touch screen that won’t make you want to tear the thing off in a fit of rage (even if you do need to squint a bit). Above all, though, every inch of leather, trim piece and switch gear is now of a very high standard; i.e. the sort of quality expected from a marque like Aston Martin.
As good as that all sounds, I haven’t landed on the Vantage as my favourite car of the year because of a simple nip and tuck. Not exclusively, anyway. See, supercars these days are so approachable that they lull you into a false sense of driver skill. Get intentionally heavy-handed with the right pedal and an electronic aid will help you style it out as a controlled skid, leaving you none the wiser about how close you came to wrapping your new toy around a tree. Of course, the Vantage has all of these things, but it’s the first car I’ve driven in a long time where it seems the systems intervene only when they think you’ve properly overcooked it.
That’s just as easily said as it is done, especially with all the changes that have been made to the AMG-sourced V8. The company has given the twin-turbo, 4.0-litre ‘hot vee’ engine a thorough going over, modifying the cams, enlarging the turbos, improving the cooling and tweaking the compression ratio in the process. The result is a staggering 665hp, or to put it another way, 30 per cent more power than the old Vantage. Aston says it’s the biggest jump in power between generations in its history, and it likes to remind you of that by ushering in 590lb ft of torque from as low as 2,000rpm and lighting the rear axle up.
A flick of the right paddle for second, third, forth and still the rear squirms around, only finding its feet in a sodden Wales when you call for fifth. And that’s in the default Sport mode. Twist the deliciously weighted dial below the centre screen for Sport+ and Track, and you'll discover the latter is where you get access to nine different traction control modes to give you just the right amount of slip angle. It’ll wriggle about even in the more forgiving settings, but once you get on top of the torque delivery and understand when the rear’s likely to break away, you start to uncover the Vantage’s new persona.
Whereas the old car was very much a GT with a playful edge, the new model feels more focused and agile. The steering, while not as hyper-responsive as a Ferrari Roma’s, reacts more eagerly and feels weightier than before. Drop a couple of gears on the approach to a corner, tuck the nose in and the Vantage rotates beautifully around its centre point, with a small kick from the rear as you power out. Whacking the suspension into its firmest setting doesn’t annihilate the ride quality, partly because the Vantage is on the stiff side anyway, and irons out the slightest hint of body roll when the dampers are set to soft. You need to wrestle it a bit to really get the most from the chassis, which is all the more rewarding when you know that it’s (mostly) you, and not a nannying computer, that’s scything from corner to corner. Or at least it feels that way. Which is entirely the point.
Naturally, the Vantage isn’t completely without fault. For instance, while it's a substantial improvement over its predecessor, the new infotainment system can still be slow to respond to inputs. This goes for some of the other electrical architecture, too: a simple twist of the dial should be all that’s needed to change the driver modes, but if you were to turn it twice to skip from Sport to Track, the system only registers one input and you have to wait for Sport+ to engage before twisting again. Ugh. Our test car also failed to recognise the key fob a few times. And on one occasion, I went to open the fuel filler cap, only for it to click inwards and not pop back out as it should. Turns out this was an issue on the old model that, annoyingly, hasn’t been rectified for the new one.
Of course, that’s the great thing about PH Favourite Car of the Year: we’re not looking for the outright best of the best from 2024 (though the Vantage is certainly among them), it’s all about the cars that have dug their way under your skin and pitched a tent there. That’s why I’ve chosen the Vantage, because a short blast down a twisty road, V8 snarling (and my goodness, does it sound good here) and rear wheels spinning, reminds you of a time when near-700hp supercars required your full attention to keep pointing in the right direction. True, it’s a fair bit more expensive at £165,000, which does comfortably get you a lightly-used DBS or even a V12 Vantage, but the company has made such strides in the last couple of years that its old brutes now seem outdated by comparison. For years now Aston has been angling to be thought of as the British Ferrari - alongside the new Vanquish, the latest Vantage makes that aspiration seem increasingly reasonable.
SPECIFICATION | ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE
Engine: 3,982cc V8, twin-turbocharged
Transmission: eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive with e-diff
Power (hp): 665@6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 590@2,000rpm-5,000rpm
0-62mph: 3.5 seconds
Top speed: 202mph
Weight: 1,605kg (minimum dry mass)
MPG: 23.3
CO2: 274g/km
Price: £165,000
Honourable mention | Toyota GR Yaris
Bit obvious this, isn’t it? I’ve been lucky enough to spend quite a lot of time with the new Toyota GR Yaris over the last 12 months, including a drive on an ice lake near the firm’s WRC team headquarters in Finland and a blast down an old Monte Carlo stage in southern France, almost every minute of which was spent channelling my inner rally driver. The car builds on what made the original so moreish, while fixing the lofty driving position and cluttered dash. All are noticeable improvements over the old model, as is the firmer suspension, which now has the sort of granular texture the original sorely lacked. Having said that, while it feels more planted than ever, I did prefer the slightly softer setup on the old car as it breathed with the undulations of the road rather than religiously following them as any other hot hatch would. And I preferred the old £30,000 (or £33k for the Circuit Pack) price tag, too, because the new model is a whopping £44,250. That doesn’t mean it isn’t brilliant, because it most certainly is, it’s just missing that ‘OMG I must have this now’ factor that made the original a bestseller.
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