Aston Martin Vantage 2024 Review | First Drive

Aston Martin has now well and truly embarked on its grand new strategy to reposition itself as a pure and proper sportscar manufacturer that will go toe to toe with the likes of McLaren and Ferrari. Yet with the same breath it attempts to maintain its core values of luxury and opulence. A deviation in focus perhaps, but not necessarily a wholesale shift in character.

After all, Aston has a reputation and heritage to uphold, that has seen it rightfully embraced as the pride of British automotive engineering for 74 years. A purity of class and poise that has laced every single one of its cars since the days of the DB2.

The Vantage has long been something of an outlier within the Aston Martin range. An entry-level of sorts, but a unique offering that leans far further towards outright performance than anything else adorned with that famous badge.

With this new version of the Vantage, Aston Martin is threatening to redefine itself. On paper at least, nothing with quite such a deep-set focus on performance has ever left the Gaydon factory. The designers and engineers have gone all in on this one; the fastest, most powerful and most dynamic Vantage ever made. The effort has been such that Aston is calling this a brand-new car, it is indeed about 80 per cent new. We can report that effort has been largely worth it.

There’s a refreshed focus to Aston Martin, and that tells in the design of the new Vantage. Everything you see on this new car, which is a substantial update on looks alone, has been implemented for a purpose. That redesigned front end with its massive grille is delivering a 29 per cent increase in cooling airflow. The splitter underneath, meanwhile, is providing real aerodynamic benefit. The updated headlight signature is also bringing the Vantage into line with the DB12 and whatever comes next.

Overall, the styling is intended to express the performance focus of this car, and while it stands 30mm wider than the previous Vantage, painstaking attention has been put into developing lines that hide that growth in size. The result is a sleek muscularity that looks absolutely fantastic from front to back.

It wouldn’t be an Aston without a level of customisability, and the Vantage is indeed offered as a canvas upon which prospective owners can splash their own personality. A catalogue of 21 colours will give you plenty to think about, as will a host of detailed personalisation options.

Substantial headway has been made when it comes to the headline figures of power and torque, progress to such an extent that the Vantage is now well and truly mixing it with the likes of McLaren and Ferrari. Extensive work on the engine has seen the cams modified and compression ratios optimised, meanwhile the turbos have been made larger and cooling improved to cause some pretty remarkable escalations in power and torque.

Technically speaking, it’s a vastly improved version of the twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 that sounds as raucous as ever. Compared to the previous iteration power is up 30 per cent to 665PS (489kW) and torque has risen 15 per cent to 800Nm (590lb ft). They’re figures that blow the McLaren GTS and Ferrari Roma out of the water, but the resulting performance is still only equal to that of both. The sprint from 0-62mph takes 3.5 seconds which, considering all of the extra shove, is only a tenth of a second quicker than the previous Vantage. The increase in top speed is less negligible, up to 202mph.

So what is all of that extra power bringing to the table? Well Aston says it’s been engineered to substantially improve in-gear performance, and with a maximum torque band stretching from 2,750-6,000rpm, the numbers at least back that up. Throttle response has also been sharpened by some 40 per cent, and it does indeed feel alert when you put the squeeze on the accelerator. Certainly during the time we spent with the car, tackling the kind of roads that dare you to maintain momentum, the Vantage was utterly joyous. There’s power and acceleration on demand, in quantities that rarely fail to bring a smile.

The bonded aluminium chassis has been reconfigured to vastly increase rigidity, the rear end alone sees a 29 per cent increase in stiffness over the previous Vantage. This latest version also retains its perfect 50:50 weight distribution, and the result of all this is a wonderful poise on the road that rewards you further with wonderfully precise and smooth steering. Turn in is always predictable, and the overwhelming sensation is one of absolute balance and control. It’s agile, supple, compliant and hugely responsive.

But it's an odd concoction that results in a strangely two-faced ride. This new Vantage floats beautifully over smooth roads, to the point where you lose a sense of connection with the surface, only to amplify imperfections on rougher surfaces that will reverberate through the chassis and into the cabin. This is by far and away the biggest sacrifice in Aston Martin’s new sportscar-led approach, there is a noticeable scarcity of refinement at low speed.

As a track car it's reasonably accessible straight out of the box, the most hand-holdy Sport mode will oversee your inputs and basically ensure that nothing really can go wrong. You still get a lovely feel of that sharpened throttle response, but the delivery of the power is stunted. The result, while still impressive, is neither particularly rewarding nor engaging. You're encouraged therefore to reach for the Sport Plus and Track modes, which soften the driver aids and allow you more of a say when it comes to car behaviour.

The real pathway to fun, though, is centred around the configurable traction control, which has eight levels, each offering slightly more slip as you cycle through. You can set your own individual traction control level in any of the driving modes, which makes for a decent amount of customisation for you to tailor the car’s behaviour to your mood or skill level. It’s perfectly suited to a driver who’s prepared to spend a bit of time learning about the car, and understanding how their inputs will affect its response.

Purists and thrill seekers will of course look straight for the ninth setting on the traction control menu, which switches it off all together. It's at this point that the Vantage becomes a more intimidating machine that requires maximum focus and plenty of bravery from a driver with substantial experience and talent to extract its full potential. The increases in power and torque are substantial, and their impact on what could already be a lively rear end have served to deliver even more spectacular results. You’ll want a spare set of new Pilot Sport S5s on hand.

When you are up to speed, the overwhelming feeling is how remarkable the Vantage is under braking. With the carbon brakes fitted the feel through the pedal is so intuitive, and the suspension has been set up just so as to allow for the front end to pitch in. Aston also says it has purposely given the rear end some wiggle room, which again serves to transfer a wonderful feel of the balance of the car. Turn in is utterly sublime, smooth and predictable to a fault. There are moments here where you forget you're driving a relatively heavy sportscar that has traditionally majored more in luxury than handling prowess. You’re very quickly reminded however as you attempt to carry speed through the apex, only to find the front end struggling to hold on as that weight begins to tell. Aston says it has worked on reducing understeer in this latest Vantage, but there’s clearly still work to be done. Don't let it spoil your enjoyment though, because there's an effective remedy positioned beneath your right foot.

This may well be Aston Martin’s biggest diversion towards an out and out sportscar in living memory, but you’d be hard pushed to notice from the inside. The cabin still exudes the kind of luxury we’ve come to expect from Aston. It’s a showcase of quality materials, elegant design and faultless execution, garnished with technology of the highest standard.

The biggest improvement is in the infotainment, the new Vantage receives the system first introduced in the DB12, but progress has been made elsewhere, too. It’s a far more elegant layout than the previous Vantage, with a cleaner and more modern feel.

In terms of quality, the materials used both in isolation and as a complete package are of the highest quality. The carbon surfaces reflect the sporting tendencies of this car, while also perfectly complementing the swathes of stitched leather around the majority of the cabin.

As the driver, you get a lovely chunky steering wheel that feels wonderful in your hands, and a very comfortable seat. Those of a more slender build will find the Vantage’s seats lack the support of a properly focused sportscar though, you’ll find yourself rattling around far more in this than you would in say an Alpine A110 or indeed anything from McLaren or Ferrari.

We mentioned the new infotainment system, an ultra-high quality 10.25-inch touchscreen display with single and multi-finger gesture control made all the better by a complement of physical buttons and switches. The infotainment is loaded with Aston Martin’s 3D nav system with online connectivity that means you can just search the internet for a restaurant or tourist attraction, and set it as your destination. You can also make use of a fully-integrated ‘what3words’ feature, or defer your media needs to Apple CarPlay.

More impressive than all of that is the optional 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins surround sound system, which fills the cabin with pure audial heaven. It’s designed specifically for the shape and size of the Vantage cabin, and the results are truly staggering, a depth and purity of sound that more than justifies the additional cost.

You’ll never see much of the most impressive tech built into the new Vantage, though. There’s an awful lot of work going on behind the scenes to make this car tick, carried out by the likes of adaptive dampers, which are constantly monitoring the conditions of the road and the car itself to maintain the ride. Meanwhile a series of electronic systems measure the car’s range of motion across six axes to maintain optimum balance on the fly. That also feeds information directly to the E-Diff to perfectly manage slip.

It’s clear that the new Vantage is an incredibly important car for Aston Martin. It’s a proof of concept for its proposed new direction, one that will see it orchestrate a gradual transformation into a more sporting proposition. That it has undergone quite such a substantial redesign at what ought to only be a mid-life update says everything it needs to about the ambition of this brand.

The results of all that effort are obvious. There’s no doubt that this new Vantage is the very best sportscar Aston Martin has ever made. That it can truly be considered a stablemate for recognised manufacturers of thoroughbred performance cars speaks highly of what’s been achieved.

That said the Vantage remains some way off being able to challenge the likes of Ferrari when it comes to serious performance on track. There’s simply no hiding its bulk, with too many of the compromises that luxury brings to make this a truly focused sportscar.

The question is whether this is a good direction for Aston to go in, and whether actually it should continue to push the envelope with the Vantage. On the evidence of this car, it certainly feels good to head out onto a race track in an Aston Martin that’s more than up to the challenge.