Aston Martin Vantage
Why the Aston’s interior needs a nip and tuck
AS A WAVE OF NEW METAL HAS WASHED THROUGH THE EVO car park this month, it’s been a time to compare and contrast how the Vantage’s interior scores.
Ergonomically there’s little to fix, in my view. There’s plenty of adjustment in the seat and steering wheel, allowing you to sit with either your cheeks on the floor or your hair brushing the headlining. Your arms can be nicely bent at the elbow or locked straight like a scene from a car chase movie franchise. You sit in the Vantage and not on it, which is crucial to feeling connected to a car. Although a more supportive seat across the shoulders and around the hips wouldn’t go amiss: on a few occasions I’ve found myself bracing my leg against the transmission tunnel/door.
The flat-bottomed steering wheel isn’t a design classic. I think it’s because there’s too much going on. Enlarged areas for your thumbs, different levels of rim thickness, and Mercedes switchgear that’s not integrated as elegantly as it could be are the culprits. It’s previousgeneration Merc componentry, though, and with the relationship continuing between the two firms the latest haptic controls will resolve this. Hopefully the gearshift paddles will remain untouched, as they are among the best in the business, along with Alfa Romeo and Mclaren’s.
Aston does need a new instrument binnacle, though. There are too many surfaces and angles in the current one; design for design’s sake possibly. And the dials within straddle the middle ground of being neither classical in layout or functional in terms of utilising current technology. The speedo positioned within the tacho doesn’t provide the quick-glance intel you need, either, with too much squeezed into a small working area.
Some have a problem with the Vantage’s button-fest of a centre console, but it’s easy to forget how refreshing – and safe – it is to have a single-function button for controls rather than having to dial into endless submenus. But it’s not hard to think the centre console was designed before the switchgear was seen. Better integration of the transmission tunnel and the centre stack would solve many of the design clashes.
Design is subjective, of course, but with a few adjustments the Vantage’s cockpit could be guaranteed to make your grin as wide as it is when you clock its exterior.
Date acquired January 2020 Total mileage 7878 Mileage this month 801 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 24.6