Aston Martin aims to go even further upmarket, to rival Ferrari and McLaren, and it’s on the mark.
Circumstance keeps stacking factors against me. I’m in a short-wheelbase, 656-hp, right-hand-drive sports car on the wet surface of an unfamiliar racetrack, and due to a communication breakdown, the stability control is off.
It starts with the engine, a familiar Mercedes-Benz AMG-sourced twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8. It spun up 503 hp in the outgoing Vantage, but here it rumbles to the tune of 656 hp and 590 lb-ft of torque. Aston Martin engineers have wrought more power out of the Mercedes engine by teaming bigger turbos with a lower compression ratio, new cam profiles, and better cooling. The changes produce 30% more hp and 15% more torque.
I not only slide the car through the corners but also fight a tendency for the rear end to come around—just as I suspected. I go easy enough on it to prevent a spin, but a few spins among my fellow journalists show the Vantage wants to oversteer at the limit, and that limit is rather easy to reach in the wet. Aston Martin says the new Vantage has 12% less understeer than the last model. Maybe that’s why it wants to oversteer.
The Vantage feels notably stiffer than the last model, with a ride quality that says sports car more than grand tourer. A stiffer steering column, firmer bushings, faster-acting adaptive dampers with greater performance capability, and a quick 12.8:1 steering ratio contribute to sharp turn-in response. The steering also sports some welcome heft and a stable on-center feel.
I go hard, though, and it feels like I would have to try to kick out the tail with sudden inputs or excess throttle. It’s easy enough to manage as the steering provides excellent feedback about what those tires are doing, and the electronic limited-slip differential sorts out the power and traction balance to vault the Vantage from one corner to the next.
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