THE SWEETEST STEERING
The 2019 Aston Martin Vantage has turned into a very sharp tool
LISBON Damn the rain. First it turned BMW’s Enduro Park in Malaga, Spain into a mud bowl, rendering my job of pretending to know how to ride a motorcycle off-road more than a little difficult. Then, the deluge spread to Lisbon, where it turned Portugal’s famous Portimao racetrack into a greasy piece of paved slime.
Make that a high-speed, morethan-a-little-scary greasy piece of paved slime. Greasy as in anything above 4,000 rpm had the new Aston Martin Vantage’s normally super-grippy Pirelli PZero tires squirming more than Harvey Weinstein deposing for a Rose McGowan civil suit. Still, between lurid slides and babying the super-torquey twin-turbo V8, we learned a few things about Aston Martin’s new budget-basement — for Aston Martin, that is — super sports car.
If you’re looking for perspective, Craig Jamieson says the new Vantage’s closest competitor is Porsche’s 911 GTS. He should know; he’s Aston Martin’s senior engineer for vehicle dynamics. More to the point, he swears up and down that, in deluges like we’re suffering, his Aston will leave said Porsche in its dust ... er, wake. He says credit goes to Aston Martin’s first electronically controlled limited-slip differential which, Aston claims, can basically tie the two rear wheels together with about 1,844 pound-feet of clamping torque in but a few seconds.
What that means is the Vantage’s rear axle can go from fullylocked, maximum acceleration in a straight line to freewheeling, turning into that hairpin right now in the blink of an eye.
Yes, it’s a Mercedes-Benz engine. Get over it. Aston just couldn’t afford to develop another engine from scratch — especially since it’s now developing an electric powertrain for its Lagonda sub-brand — so it turned to Mercedes’ AMG division for its full-zoot, 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8. But as Aston continuously points out, the block may be German but the induction and exhaust systems are pure Old Blighty.
That means 503 horsepower and 505 pound-feet of torque, 18 more than the DB11’s version of the same power plant. What’s more important is that the big V8 sounds completely un- Germanic. Where AMG’s version sounds like a Detroit big block gone to finishing school, the Aston version sings a sharper, more European tune.
Jamieson apologized because his Vantage only goes 312 km/h. This has nothing to do with insufficient steam. Jamieson says that because they wanted a perkier Aston, they shortened the rear gear (DBs get a 2.7:1 rear axle; the Vantage a 2.93:1). So, while it runs out of revs earlier, throttle response is noticeably perkier.
For instance, zero to 60 mph (96 km/ h) takes but 3.6 seconds, not bad for a car with only two driven wheels and no launchcontrol system.
The engine is pushed way back in the frame. Lift the hood and it looks like those big twin turbos — nestled in the ‘vee’ of the cylinders where one normally expects to find carburetors (OK, EFI intake manifolds) — are right under the windshield wipers. If the Ferrari 488 is a rear midengine car, then the Vantage is front mid-engine car. The entirety of the engine, including the accessory drive, is located behind the front axle which, Jamieson says, helps give the Vantage an almost perfect 50:50 front-torear weight distribution.
The Vantage is noticeably smaller than a DB11. It’s about 100 millimetres shorter in wheelbase, and at 4,465 mm, it’s a whopping 284 mm shorter than the DB11. It’s actually shorter by 34 mm overall than the 911 GTS.
Still, it’s not cramped inside. Indeed, the big difference between DB11 and Vantage, says chief of design Marek Reichman, is that the interior is swaddled in Alcantara rather than traditional leather.
The interior is Aston’s best effort yet, with logically arranged switchgear, plenty of legroom and a navigation system only slightly out of date.
A stiffer chassis lets the Vantage’s suspension — double wishbones in front and a multi-link independent system in the rear — work better and also generates more feedback to the driver through the steering wheel. This is Aston Martin’s best chassis yet.
The Vantage is a sharp tool. Indeed, all this talk of sloppy weather and slippy-slidey tarmac can’t detract from the fact that this is the sweetest-steering Vantage yet. Even lubricated with rain, the front P255/40ZR20 Pirelli PZero tires stuck tenaciously, body roll was nonexistent and, when the traction control wasn’t killing the party, acceleration was plenty potent.
Denigrate the use of a Merc engine all you will or snicker at Jamieson’s contention that an automatic is superior to a DCT, but the new Vantage can see your 911 GTS and raise it a few hundred pound-feet of torque and a few lateral Gs on the skid pad. That it costs $172,495 (not far off what Mercedes charges for an AMG GT), yet retains the exclusivity of anything built in Gaydon, speaks well of Aston Martin’s future. Driving.ca