VANTAGE TAKES TO THE ICE
New Aston Martin gets winter workout
Across a lean reindeer steak and a surprisingly good Riesling in the only Scottish-run Irish pub in Arvidsjaur, Sweden, there’s one question in particular I want to ask Aston Martin’s Mark Barron and Matt Becker: Why now?
It will be another nine months before the brand new Vantage is unveiled to its baying public, and another year, if not more, before a journalist sits behind the wheel of, what company chief executive Andy Palmer refers to as, “a huge step” and “the most beautiful car (he’s) ever been involved in designing”. But why involve the media now, during a stability control systems test in Sweden? Why not just wait?
“We really wanted to get you guys involved in the process,” explains Matt, chief engineer of vehicle engineering. “To invite you and let you see how the Vantage can behave and perform in these conditions, and how much of a challenge they really are. Something like this demonstrates the full range of capabilities and we wanted to bring you on at least part of the journey.”
“But we’re also very excited by this too,” continues Mark, Aston’s go-to on stability control systems. “Involving the media and getting the buzz going early that the Vantage is going to be something very special.”
The significance of the new Vantage in Aston’s “Second Century Plan” is colossal. Behind last year’s new DB11, and ahead of the more brutal Vanquish, set to arrive in 2019, the new, more performance focused Vantage is the biggest step yet toward Aston Martin’s resurgence as a credible rival to Bentley, Porsche, and maybe even Ferrari, thanks to a planned, broader diversification of products, a crucial stage of which is this test of the sports car’s stability controls in Sweden.
“It’s effectively hitting the reset button,” Matt says.
Ironically, it’s this significance that makes our introduction to the prototype Vantage all the more comical. There’s no myriad camera flashes as the silks are dropped, nor a hint of the Lime Essence “communication colour” that will split the room nine months later. Instead, behind a shuttered door at the Arvidsjaur winter testing facility, the heavily camouflaged mule we’re here to see — AM600 — sits beside two-dozen small packing crates, a spare set of heavily grooved tires and a discarded fire blanket. It’s as un-Aston-like as you can get.
Cosmetically more DB11 than Vantage for now, the restyled headlights, new side gills and gorgeous flowing rear bodywork are still some months away from being finalized, but we’re assured the 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8 beneath is good to go, bar a gruff soundtrack that still needs fine-tuning. Indeed, the AMG-sourced eight cylinders — which replace the predecessor’s naturally aspirated unit — now sit lower and further back for improved 50:50 weight distribution and a lower centre of gravity.
The test team keep rigidly schtum about performance figures, explaining only that the V8 will give “around 500 bhp” (it’s actually 503 hp) and will hit 0-to-100 km/h in “3.8- ish” (later confirmed as 3.6, four-tenths quicker than the outgoing model).
The chassis on which the engine and new eight-speed ZF transmission are mounted shares the same basic architecture as that found on the DB11, but is 230 millimetres shorter and features up to 70 per cent new componentry for added precision. There’s almost laserguided focus on agility, courtesy of a new multi-link suspension and “Skyhook” dampers at the back, a shorter — and thus more responsive — steering rack at the front, and the first ever E-Diff attached to a production Aston.
The prolonged tease mercifully comes to an e nd as the (gruff ) V8 is fired into life, Matt slides behind the wheel — I’m in the passenger seat — and the stud-shod Pirelli P Zeros crunch their way over the snow toward the test track.
There’s no hint of the restyled cabin that will be later be unveiled. Instead, there’s a complex web of wires snaking their way to a junction box next to my left boot (“try to avoid kicking that as that’s where we get most of our data from”) and a dramatically big and red kill switch on the centre console, “just in case.”
Behind my left ear sits a half roll cage, and the leather-clad sport seats have been ripped out for fourway harnesses and buckets. Again, the focus is on precision and performance, emphasized as Matt flicks some switchgear to activate Sport+.
“By December we’ll be focusing on wet- and dry-road testing, and by then the engine calibration, the transmission, the chassis dynamics and the brakes will all have advanced. So the next test will check all these complex systems still work in these conditions, and to tune them a bit further.
I hear almost none of it, my knuckles getting ever so much whiter as we traverse a 1.5-km circuit, carved out of the ice, complete with hairpins and chicanes, that’s no wider than a two-car garage, at about 50 km/h. Despite the subzero conditions, there’s no doubting the sharpness of the front end. Mark says that the new Vantage is considerably more nimble than its more pudgy predecessor (cut the bells and whistles and the Vantage will weigh in at 1,560 kg).
But that’s not why we’re here today. We’re not here to test the agility of the Pirellis, the comfort of the ride or the outlandish grunt of the V8. We’re here to see a new era begin, to learn just how committed Aston Martin is to its next century and to feel the buzz. And this is just the beginning.