What's all this about?
Last year, Aston Martin uprated the Vantage from a 'Very Fast Car' to a 'Very Fast Car with a capital F and capital Q'. Well, that same power upgrade has now happened to the Vantage Roadster.
Which means...?
Which means this is a two-seater open-top that'll crack the double-ton (top whack is 202mph) and run 0-62mph in around 3.5 seconds, mainly because its twin-turbo, 4.0-litre V8 has been jacked up by the colossal amounts of 155hp and 115Nm. Those figures on their own would make a fairly reasonable small-capacity engine, but added on top of what the Vantage already possessed, it results in massive peak outputs of 665hp and 800Nm. Brutal.
That does sound nice. What else has Aston had to change, aside from the obvious of the roof?
Not much. The Roadster has composite panels and clever hidden structural reinforcements to compensate for the loss of a fixed roof, but underneath it all is the same serious chassis hardware as found in the Vantage Coupe. This means the suspension has advanced Bilstein DTX dampers, while the brakes are carbon-ceramic efforts headlined by 410mm front discs gripped by six-piston callipers. An eight-speed automatic sends all of the V8's grunt at the rear wheels, and the tyres employed to give the car as much grip and traction as possible in the 800Nm circumstances are Michelin Pilot Sport S 5s. Aston says that the Roadster was not developed as a 'subservient' version of the Coupe (as in, they built the hard-top first and then worked out how to lop the roof off without too much detriment); rather, both cars were developed concurrently. One minor change is that the suspension has been slightly retuned for the Roadster, to compensate for its increased weight and subtle change in distribution of said bulk.
Ah. We'd better talk about the roof, then, hadn't we?
Yes, but don't panic - the weight gain is by no means extraordinary. In fact, just 60kg has been added to the Aston's kerb figure, courtesy of the use of a lightweight 'Z-fold' lid that can raise and lower in just 6.8 seconds, even on the move at speeds of up to 31mph. But as the Roadster is an Aston Martin, when all's said and done, refinement is key and so the soft-top is stuffed with eight layers of noise insulation in order to make the car as quiet as its Coupe relation when it's travelling at a lick.
Sounds good. Anything else on the vehicle itself?
Just that it has the drastically revised front-end design of the Coupe now, with larger, higher-set headlights and a big radiator grille, while inside is the in-house-developed (and much improved) infotainment system presented on a 10.25-inch touchscreen. Audiophiles will also like to know that the standard set-up is a 390-watt, 11-speaker audio system, but a top-notch Bowers & Wilkins installation is an option. As is access to Q by Aston Martin, the seemingly limitless personalisation and bespoke service provided by the manufacturer.
Nice. And do we have prices?
Not precisely, although as the Coupe costs from £165,000 then you can extrapolate where the Vantage Roadster will be positioned. And it's a great time to launch it, because 2025 is the 75th anniversary of the first open-topped Vantage becoming available to the public - that car being the drophead coupe variant of the DB2 with the Vantage power upgrade package - as well as the 20th anniversary of a specific model of car wearing the 'Vantage' nameplate, rather than it simply being a high-power derivative of an existing Aston. And, as a two-seater foil to the larger, grander DB12 Volante, it gives the company's well-heeled customers even greater convertible choice going forward.
Final words to Adrian Hallmark, Aston Martin's CEO, who said: "The technical and dynamic capability of the new Vantage delivered outstanding performance; far beyond any other preceding Vantage, and it is now seen as a true class leading sports car. Vantage Roadster was no different in that it is a fully reinvented experience, with all the benefits of the Coupe and no compromise to refinement or performance through meticulous work by our engineering and dynamics teams. Vantage Roadster delivers a world-class roof-down driving experience like no other."
Matt Robinson - 15 Jan 2025