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In a perfect world, all cars would feel like this
ABOUT once a year, I drive a car which is truly special – car which, when people ask me “What have you driven lately?”, I have no difficulty in droning on about at great length.
So the car whose return to its manufacturer has left be bereft in 2009 is...the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster.
This is simply stunning. It should be for £91,000 of course, but driving it really does bring a huge smile to the face and a feeling that, despite all the doom, gloom and misery around us at the moment, behind the wheel all is right with the world.
Road-huggingly low, it is not a large car. Indeed, with the hood up, it can feel slightly claustrophobic. The interior is sumptuous – the test car was finished in blue leather, lots of it, with suede in the pillars, and calf leather on the glove box. Actually, a pair of gloves is about all it will hold. Take out the specially-shaped leatherbound owner’s manual and you may just fight in a Cartier necklace box, but otherwise it’s pretty useless.
Of more use is the centre console, which has an iPod connector which allows full control of your music from the dashboard. There’s a CD player, obviously, but who needs music (even the James Bond Greatest Hits CD we chose to listen to all weekend), when the engine sounds like that.
The engine, you see, is what makes this car. It sounds like nothing on earth, and propels this magnificent piece of machinery to 62mph in an eye-watering 4.7 seconds.
At idle, it growls, but put your foot down and the sound cranks up to the most extraordinary rasp that feels three times faster than it actually is – my father was brought out in a cold sweat at 65mph.
With a top speed of 175mph, this is a car on which cruise control is an essential feature, rather than a nice gadget, if you want to keep your licence for any length of time.
Developed from the outset alongside the V8 Vantage Coupe which was launched in 2005, the Roadster shares the unique-to-Aston Martin bonded aluminium VH (Vertical Horizontal) architecture – the backbone to all modern Aston Martins. Adding to this structure sophisticated materials such as lightweight alloys, magnesium and advanced composites are used for the body, further contributing to the car’s low weight and high rigidity.
Driver and passenger sit low, close to the car's centre of gravity, where they can feel the car reacting to the input of the driver – a special sensation, usually only experienced in racing cars – providing a direct and sporting connection between car and driver.
Despite the additional mechanism associated with the Vantage Roadster’s convertible roof and the additional body stiffness, Aston Martin’s engineering team have ensured only a minimal weight increase to preserve the agile and sporting characteristics of the V8 Vantage Coupe. At just 4.38 metres (172.5 in) long, Vantage Roadster remains not only the smallest model in the Aston Martin range but also one of the leanest cars in its class.
Vantage Roadster will be available with two transmission alternatives from launch.
Offered as standard is the fast-shifting, six-speed Graziano conventional stick-shift manual gearbox, with ratios perfectly matched to the performance of the V8 engine.
From page 38
This is joined by Aston Martin's new Sportshift automated manual transmission – an ultra-quick system that provides the driver with heightened precision via fingertip control of gear changes using paddles to progress smoothly and swiftly through the ratios.
I drove the manual version, although I have to say that if I was in the fortunate position of being able to choose, I would probably go for the auto. This is not a car that is particularly suited to town driving or slow traffic - the clutch gets very very hot, very quickly. So hot, in fact, that you can smell it.
The hood retracts in a matter of seconds, and this really is a car you want to drive with the roof down. Hood up, it feels quite closed in, and, more seriously, the all-round visibility is poor, especially pulling out of junctions at acute angles.
Being the smallest Aston in the range, it is huge fun to drive, and the suspension is firm without knocking your teeth out. Sure-footed in corners, it feels incredibly safe, and after a lunatic in a green van tried to T-bone us in Snelsmore (you know who you are) I can testify that the ABS braking works a treat.
Mind you, call me picky, but for £91,000 I want perfection, or as near as damn it, and perfect it ain’t. The glove box, as I have mentioned, is tiny, as is the boot. If I played golf, I’d fret about where to put my clubs, and it doesn’t help that a large part of the boot space is taken up with a zip-up bag containing the wind deflector. It rather defeats the object of having a whizzy fold-down roof if you then have to mess about slotting in the anti-buffeting deflector manually, and it rather smacks of cutting corners on such a fantastic car.
Likewise, if you are going to offer sat-nav as an expensive option, you ought to make it a good one. This one may look as if it was designed by Q for 007’s personal use, but it is cumbersome, inefficient and frankly has fewer features than my £100 Navman.
But, nitpicking aside, the V8 Vantage is an extraordinary with a fine pedigree.
At a glance: Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster
Price: £91,000
Top speed: 175mph
0-62mph: 4.7 seconds
Fuel consumption: Urban - 14.4mpg, extra-urban - 27.3mpg, combined - 20.4mpg
CO2 emissions: 328g/km
11/03/2009 17:08:00
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