ASTON MARTIN V8 VANTAGE
A big birthday was just the excuse Peter Tomalin needed to buy the car he’d always promised himself
IT DOESN’T HAVE TO TAKE SOMETHING MOMENTOUS to prompt you into buying the car of your dreams. But, in my case, it did. Within the space of roughly 12 months I’d lost both my parents and was about to turn 60. Which are the kind of events that make a chap reflect on life and re-order his priorities. And, after due reflection, pretty near the top of mine was buying an Aston Martin. What had been a daydream now felt like an imperative.
My dad had almost bought an Aston once, a DB6, back in the early ’80s, but it slipped through his fingers – and then values went through the roof. He’d missed his chance. I decided to take the plunge and, if things didn’t work out, at least I could bore my grandchildren by telling them how I once blew the family fortune on an Aston Martin. A far bigger regret would be looking back in five or ten years’ time and wishing I’d done it when I could. So, with a modest but very welcome inheritance, I started looking.
I’d decided it would be an early Gaydon-era car, either a DB9 or a V8 Vantage. A DB7 V12 Vantage would have been another option, but the more modern underpinnings of the ‘VH’ cars swung it for me. Both DB9 and V8V are pretty much at the bottom of their depreciation curves (or at least that’s what I’d convinced myself), with well cared-for examples widely available between £30,000 and £35,000.
You don’t have to pay even that much. You can find plenty of either, but Vantages especially, for less than £30k, usually either private sales or through non-specialist dealers. Many of these are good, wellmaintained cars, but equally many will have been run on a limited budget with less than fastidious attention to servicing. Which gives significant potential for financial ruination. So if you’re looking at cars in the £25k-30k bracket, make sure you do your homework – there’s plenty of good advice out there on various forums and on Youtube from the likes of Aston indie Bamford Rose. If you don’t feel confident assessing a car yourself, many specialists provide an inspection service for a few hundred pounds that should flag up any looming issues, though there are, of course, no guarantees.
Except, that is, when you take the second option: pay a few thousand more and buy from either an official Aston dealer or a well-regarded specialist, knowing that the car will have been thoroughly checked and will carry a warranty for at least the first year. Being an Aston virgin and something of a coward, I knew this was the right course for me.
Next step was to drive examples of both. The DB9 is a fine GT and an undeniably beautiful car; it has a more spacious, more
sumptuous interior, and – its trump card – it has that wonderful 5.9-litre V12 engine. The V8V is more than decently quick, even the early 4.3, but the big twelve is on another level: utterly effortless performance with a soundtrack that’s positively symphonic.
The Vantage is slightly more sporting in its dynamic make-up; its shorter body overhangs, slightly firmer suspension and – not least – the fact that its engine is set lower and further back in the chassis, mean it feels that bit more sucked down to the road, that bit more agile through a sequence of bends. The V8 isn’t as torquey as the V12, but its boisterously vocal soundtrack encourages you to rev it right out. A modern turbocharged sports car would blow it away, but it means you can enjoy the full reach of the VH V8’s performance all the way through the lower gears without waving your licence goodbye.
And that was the other thing in the Vantage’s favour: all early V8VS are manuals when the vast majority of DB9S are autos with paddles: manual Nines are like hen’s teeth and command a substantial premium today. And I really liked the idea of a manual gearbox. While the shift in the Vantage isn’t the best – blame the remote linkage to the rearmounted ’box – it does give you another tangible connection to the car, and its heavy, mechanical feel is evocatively redolent of Astons of the past. As a long-time Aston fan, I like that.
I was being drawn inexorably towards a Vantage, and then I spotted a new arrival amongst the stock of Warwickshire-based specialists Mcgurk Performance Cars: an early 2006 car in rare Toro red with
Phantom grey leather, 40,000 miles, five former keepers (the only minus point) but well known to John Mcgurk and his team, since they’d serviced it for the last six or seven years and sold it twice before.
Knowing it probably wouldn’t stick around for long, I drove across to the showroom a couple of days later. And it did look absolutely terrific. The nose and the leading edge of the rear arches had a light freckling of gravel chips, but nothing serious; the door edges, handles and around the mirror supports (usually the first areas to suffer corrosion) all looked bubble-free; the clutch felt fine; there was no sign of oil leaks from the timing cover, and John assured me the rear subframe had only the usual superficial rust (gasket replacement, clutch renewal and subframe refurbishment being the biggest potential drains on your savings with these cars). Boasting a full service history, it had clearly been cherished by each of those previous owners.
The asking price was £32,850, so with the kind of brutal haggling that Alan Partridge would have been proud of, I hammered John Mcgurk all the way down to £32,500. He didn’t stand a chance. But a service and fresh MOT would be included and John offered to refurb a wheel that had a slight nerf to the rim. I was happy with that.
I picked it up the day before my big birthday. It was a gloriously sunny spring day and the drive home to Cambridgeshire was one of the highlights of my motoring life. That was three months ago and there hasn’t been a single moment of regret since.
According to John Mcgurk, values of early Vantages (and DB9S) had
‘YOU CAN ENJOY THE V8’S PERFORMANCE WITHOUT WAVING YOUR LICENCE GOODBYE’
been gradually drifting downwards for a number of years, but from early 2020 they started to harden again and the best cars have even edged up by a few per cent over the last 12-18 months.
That’s a nice thought. But, honestly, it hardly crept into my reckoning. Because there are some things you just can’t value in pounds sterling. When I open the curtains in the morning and see the V8 Vantage sitting on the drive, it puts a soppy smile on my face; when I fire up the rowdy V8, I break out into a broad grin, and every drive genuinely does feel like an event.
My parents would have understood. ‘You are,’ as my mother often told me, ‘a long time dead.’ And, as my father often said, with slightly less profundity but no less feeling: ‘I should have bought that bloody Aston Martin.’
CONCLUSION
IT’S SURELY NO COINCIDENCE THAT ALL THREE OF the cars featured here are naturally aspirated; slightly more of a coincidence that they’re all V8s, but actually that’s not so surprising. Each of those engines is, as you’d expect, very different in nature to the next, from the C63’s thumping, torque-rich 6.3 to the 458’s screaming flat-plane-crank 4.5, but what they have in common – beyond their abundant power and keen throttle response – is a wealth of what we call character. Soul, if you like. These engines are living, (fire) breathing entities, the absolute heart of each of these cars. One thing’s for sure: you won’t get any of that from a battery pack.
Of course, other engine configurations are available. Yowling in-line fours, howling sixes (straight, bent and flat), even 10- and 12-cylinder cars are all out there waiting for you. We’ve focused here on three particular models, but we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s available in today’s marketplace. E46 M3s and E39 M5s, 996 and 997-gen Porsche 911s, Audi R8s and B7-gen RS4S, Imprezas and Evos, Elises, Exiges and Esprits, RS Clios and Méganes, F430s and Gallardos – there really is something for all tastes and all pockets.
In time, cars like these will become a dwindling resource; restrictions on their use may well follow. But the underlying message here is a positive one. Their days may ultimately be numbered, but they’re still going to be around to enjoy for many years to come; these and literally dozens of other great cars that pulse with redblooded vitality.
As long as you’re prepared to be realistic about the running costs, and unless you’re planning to drive them into the centre of London (and why in God’s name would you?) there really aren’t any prohibitive penalties for their use. For the time being, at least.
Which leaves only two questions. What are you going to buy – and what are you waiting for?