New 2018 Aston Martin Vantage - prototype review

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Becker has already delivered a technical briefing on the car that could have won awards for its shortness and sweetness. It went something like this.

“The car’s more or less the same width as a Aston Martin DB11, but shorter than a Porsche 911. I’m not sure you’d guess that last bit by looking at it, but if anyone’s to blame for that, it’s the colouring-in department.

“The chassis is 20kg lighter than the old Vantage’s was and also 30% more rigid, as well as being 10% more rigid than that of a DB11. It uses most of the same suspension hardware as a DB11, but it’s significantly differently tuned. And although the steering box is the same, the effective steering ratio has increased because the wheelbase is 100mm shorter than a DB11’s. Even on the snow, you’ll feel the difference.

“The V8 engine is pretty much as you’ll find it in a DB11 V8, but there’s 7lb ft more torque here available over a broader band of revs, and we’ve done a lot of exhaust tuning to give the car its own audible character.

“Downstream of that, there’s the same eight-speed transaxle gearbox as a DB11 has, but we’re using a much cleverer electronically controlled e-diff from GKN. That means we can adapt and control the Vantage’s lateral dynamics in many more ways than we could with the DB11: at low speeds, at high speeds, when manoeuvring, on track and in low-grip conditions. We’ve also got a rigid-mounted rear suspension subframe where the DB11’s is bushed so the driver gets much better feel for the rear axle.”

Becker then showed us a Powerpoint slide with a multicoloured graph of engine sound harmonics to prove his point about the Vantage’s unique engine note but quickly realised it’d be much easier just to start up the engine of the disguised production prototype that we were gathered around at the time. And so he did. Bwarp bwarp, cackle snap, gargle gargle. Hmm… it’s different again: different from a DB11 V8 and Mercedes-AMG GT. Angrier than the DB, but not too bassy and not as comically overdone on the overrun as some. Approving nods all round.

Now, after showing me the way around TestWorld’s snaking forest handling track and making the Vantage look hilariously easy to drive both with the electronic aids fully operational and with them switched off, drifting through bend after bend in Track mode with just one hand on the wheel, Becker smiles, gets out of the Vantage’s driver’s seat and lets me have a go. “There’s one particularly tricky downhill, tightening bend where we’ve seen some incidents,” he says, alluding to other hacks who’d evidently forgotten the testing job they came to do and become carried away with their drifting practice nstead. Unforgivable. “But keep the speed down, remember we’re not on studded tyres, and you’ll be fine.”

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A quick look around the cabin before we move off. This is a late prototype outwardly disguised with striped tape, but it can’t be too far off production form inside. The materials look great, the finish is impressive and the seats are good (a touch more hugging than a DB11’s but better for it).

The centre console is different from the DB11’s, too: higher-rising and busier with buttons. Aston has moved the familiar strip of engine and transmission control buttons (Engine start/stop, D, N, R, P) downwards and closer to the natural resting position of your left arm. It has also included a nest of buttons immediately below that with shortcuts for the infotainment system and for switching off the stability control. The move certainly makes interacting with the car easier.

Just as they are in the DB11, though, the Vantage’s various operating modes for its powertrain and suspension/e-diff are controlled through thumb toggles on the steering wheel: it’s left thumb for powertrain modes, right for suspension. But whereas a DB11 has GT, Sport and Sport+ modes, a Vantage shifts your options one step further towards the sporting end of the dynamic spectrum and gives you Sport, Sport+ and Track settings to choose from with either thumb.

Becker admits the Vantage’s rigid-mounted rear subframe does make the car’s ride noisier than a DB11’s, but it’s still quieter, he reckons, than that of a 911 or a Mercedes-AMG GT – “and not without decent ride compliance in Sport mode”.

We’ll have to take his word for that today. Compacted snow isn’t known for its bumpiness, after all. But after tootling out onto the track with a fair bit of circumspection, it takes all of two or three corners to confirm what he said earlier about the Vantage’s DB11-topping handling response. Even on snow polished marble hard, the car turns in with the immediacy you expect of a much lighter sports car, and it isn’t at all difficult to keep its nose right where you want it.

The steering weight is only medium heavy, but that’ll change on a grippier surface with a bit of lateral load in the suspension, and its pace is medium quick but sensible. There’s plenty of steering angle available, too. We might be needing that in a minute. But the stability control is on and has been working hard and well so far, keeping such a tight rein on the throttle as to make the Vantage’s power delivery feel entirely smooth and to keep its handling completely benign, even here.

Time to start pressing buttons. Its calmer settings keep the throttle map nicely linear, but it transpires you need the powertrain in Track mode to make the V8 (optional sports exhaust fitted, by the way) sound really exciting. That’s what we’ll have, then. Put the suspension in Sport+, Becker tells me, to make the dampers firm up a bit and the e-diff have the greatest enlivening effect on the car’s cornering manners. Righto. “Fully locked, the diff can transmit 1844lb ft of locking torque,” he says “which makes a massive difference to the car’s counter-steer stability and T-junction start traction. A typical mechanical slippy diff has a range of about 369lb ft to 738lb ft.”

Sounds impressive. But the e-diff’s effect on the Vantage’s limit handling balance is a lot more telling even than that might imply – and so clever. In ESP off mode, the diff seems to have just the right amount of locking on a trailing throttle to make the car rotate gently towards the inner snow bank as you settle its nose on turn-in. Then, as soon as you need in enough power to stabilise the car’s attitude, pick up some yaw and forward momentum and usher it into gentle, snowy, 30mph oversteer, the rear axle feels so controllable that it’s uncanny. It doesn’t take much power to do it, either, so the delicacy of those rear diff settings really matters. Any inconsistency would instantly show. But there’s none: this is amazing mid-corner poise for a front-engined car.

Sliding this 503bhp Aston Martin between snow banks becomes thoroughly instinctive. Easy? Not quite. The snow isn’t forgiving of so much as an inch too much accelerator pedal, or tolerant of as much as 2mph too much carried speed, as I find out with a few low-speed spins. Next I encounter what Becker and the team call ‘snow bank assist’ – what happens when you lean the outside rear wing of the Vantage on a powdery snow verge just to arrest its ever increasing drift angle.

A couple more corners like that and, in his genial way, Becker reminds me that if I happen to be looking for it, I’ll find the stability control button on the centre console, exactly where I left it. Hint taken. I’d learned what I needed to about this car a while ago: that it’ll take Aston into a stronger position than the original Vantage ever claimed in what has probably become the most important segment in the performance car market. That much seems unquestionable – even at this stage. I can’t say how fast the new Vantage feels, how good the body control or brakes are, or whether it’ll have such remarkable mid-corner poise at 80mph on a dry track as it does at 30mph on a snowy one; but there’s every reason to be hopeful on all fronts.

More than anything, it’s great to see a truly telling blow for the frontengined, rear-driven, old-school option landed in a segment where almost all of the really great headline makers of the past few years have been mid-engined. Right back atcha, then, Honda NSX, 570S, Audi R8 and others: the classic V8 sports coupé has a new handling champion. And who knows just how good it may yet prove to be?

Aston Martin Vantage

Price £120,900 Engine V8, 3982cc, twin-turbo, petrol Power 503bhp at 6000-6500rpm Torque 505lb ft at 2000-5000rpm Gearbox 8-spd automatic Kerb weight 1530kg (dry) 0-62mph 3.6sec Top speed 195mph Economy 26.9mpg CO2, tax band 245g/km, 37%

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We drove the convertible DB11, available exclusively with V8 power, abroad last month and will drive it on UK roads very soon. Production has started and deliveries are under way.

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The international press launch is under way in Portugal as you read this, and you’ll be finding out what we think in early April. But if your order isn’t in already, it’ll be 2019 before you’ll get one.