DRIVING the stunning NEW Aston Martin Vantage | Henry Catchpole - The Driver's Seat

[Music] you always know what you're going to get with James Bond the music the gadgets m q Bond James Bond a silver Aston Martin all reassuringly for familiar and so it is with the new Aston Martin Vantage the lcks the V8 placed up front driving the re Wheels this is a script we've seen before except just as Daniel Craig brought a bit more muscle to bond so this latest Vantage brings a bit more power to the baby [Music] Aston if this film Thunders your ball and rakes your moon then please think about joining the haggy drivers Club amongst other things you get an award-winning magazine and 24/7 roadside assistance to find out more just click on the link in the description down [Music] below let's just take a moment to appreciate how good this looks because I think it's almost easy to gloss over it because the design well it could almost be from 10 years ago there's a lot of 177 in it but that's hardly a bad thing and we get used to seeing Aston Martins like this but it's just so cool I love the spec of this car silver those sort of bronze Wheels I wasn't sure about the green calipers but I think they work there's a little bit of interest in there and they pick out the green of the Aston Martin badge here this has it whatever cool is this has got it of course the 165,000 Vantage does now look very similar to the 80,000 db12 that was launched last year it has exactly the same size tires as the db12 2 and the same top speed and now with its massive 656 BHP it has nearly as much power in fact apart from the number of seats the specs of the two cars look very similar in a lot of ways however as soon as you're behind the wheel it's obvious the Vantage drives quite differently instantly this has all the soundtrack that the db12 didn't whatever configuration this has always been a great sounding engine and even in its quietest most muted setting that I've got it at the moment it's full of character dial it up one or even two settings and you start to get some cracks and even more volume it's definitely a very exhaust driven sound but it is great the steering too the steering is quick in db12 but this feels just more direct more connected a little weightier it's not a steering system that's brimming with feel but there's a real sense of connection and precision with it that gives confidence you instantly notice the efforts that the engineers have gone to to remove any rubber from the system but I do still wish that Aston could have copied McLaren and held on to hydraulic assistance for some proper old school steering fi I think the wheel and the Vantage would be better if it was slimmed down just a bit too but they have got the tactility spot on elsewhere in the cabin the interior it is undoubtedly a big improvement over the old Vantage if you've seen db12 then this will all seem very familiar it's just slightly differently orientated but by and large is exactly the same and it is just a massive Improvement is it the most beautiful interior I've ever seen no but it it functions well and it's not all on the touchcreen and obviously things like these are just really nice to use elsewhere there is still some old sort of Mercedes switch gear carry over in here and the window switches seem to be from the dawn of window switches still but by and large it's a nice place to be this part of southern Spain near Seville is a jolly nice place to be as well that was the amazing Rio Tinto which um well is quite extraordinary it would make a good sort of backdrop for Bon villain I think a river running blood red it's actually incredibly acidic so it's got a pH value of about two because of the minerals that are in it and they've used it for um well predicting what it might be like if they find water on Mars Elon Musk is reportedly often found bathing in its Waters anyway back to the new Vantage which isn't in any way alien in the way it drives even in its default setting this now feels like a much more direct torter car in the corners and if you turn it then up to Sport Plus and it really does get extra Edge as soon as you turn into the corners you feel it lean on the side walls of the tires it's a wide car this but actually because it's so well responsive and it's got the grip it feels pretty compact because it's front engine rear wheel drive we've got no rear wheel steer on this dynamically it's quite an easy car to understand you can definitely feel the change in damping as you go up through the modes these new Bilstein DTX dampers it's quite firm I think in its primary ride this is a smooth road but it's definitely dealing with the smaller bumps well much of this new Precision is down to extra stiffening of the car's structure and you can see some of this chassis Viagra when you open the bonnet handbuilt in Great Britain final inspection by Dale Clark well on Dale for building a great engine it's worth having a look at this I think because we'll come to the the differences in a second but just to see again how far back in the chassis this sits which kind of you it does make so much sense when you drive the car and how centralized all the mass feels it it'ss see right behind the front axle line here the engine well obviously to create all that extra power it has been revised but I think more than I perhaps would have thought by just looking at the initial specs it's still four liters but the block has been slightly revised new cam shafts and you've obviously got bigger turbo sitting within that hot V in there all to produce I'll say it again 656 brake horsepower and the baby Aston monstrous for reference that's 153 brake horsepower up on the old car while torque has also risen from 505 to 590 ft this is an engine that loves the mid-range that sort of 3 to 5,000 RPM is its happy place arguably the disappointment in that is that you don't have a really spine tingling top end but it does give up its performance easily more easily than some which means you can access it more of the time now we've obviously got the paddles attached to the back of the wheel rather than the steering column I think just personal preferences to which you like more I always quite like the old static paddles I do kind of wish that this had a double clutch gearbox there are reasons they say for keeping the ZF Auto in here and it's not bad at all and in some ways I think for the way that a lot of these will probably be driven most of the time you could argue that it is the right solution but I think for the sporty EST car in the range or the sportier car certainly compared to the db12 it would be nice to have a DCT and just that extra bit of connection with the drivetrain just a bit more snap it just leaves you feeling a little bit removed I think three pedals and an H pattern would have been even better if ason really wanted to live up to its slogan of engineered for real drivers just like broen in the world is not enough however let's hope it's in the pipeline of course this has also got shorter final drive and that's lovely because it feels like it Sprints between each of these bends on this amazingly Serpentine Road as much as this car is better than the old Vantage and it certainly is I don't feel like there's anything groundbreaking in here there's not a real technology story but there is a feel-good factor to driving this car and that really shouldn't be underestimated the question is does that Feelgood Factor continue if you start to drive it like an entire F1 goup is on your tail time to swap the silver for safety car green and take this 202 mph Vantage onto the Searing heat of the Monte Blanco circuit this might not be an absolutely natural out andout track car but having a Main Street that's nearly a kilometer long gives us a chance to actually test something of that top speed that's 260 km an hour down there big carbon ceramic brakes on this car really work nice feel actually and really confidence inspiring into the there moving around a little bit but just feels nice you've got a sense of exactly where that front end is straight away although track mode seemed like the obvious setting to dial up it was immediately clear that the dampers were set too stiff for the bumps of Mont Blanco so I actually backed them all the way off to sport which made things considerably better perfect 50/50 weight balance and you can feel that I like the fact you can load the front end up which means you can feel like you are pushing the car without it will just being about over steer having said that you do over [Music] steer we got a n-stage traction control system in this just like we sort have seen in BMW before and obviously Mercedes AMG T but to be honest this is so well balanced that actually you can turn it all the way to n or off we've also got in here some yellow colored carbon fiber which is actually quite nice I'm not sure I would have thought I'd like it but it's sort of reminiscent of the old carbon Kevlar weave you see in sort of the footwell of an F40 or something like that but without the green glue perhaps I'd have my stitching in green just to make me think of that every time although it's moving around on the brakes you got really nice feel through the pedal actually up over here just balance it this is a tricky long corner just feel it hop a little bit bumpy into here so it doesn't like that too much but again you can really grab it by the Scruff of the neck it's not precise this is not a sort of G3 RS it's not completely at home on the track but because it's got good balance and obviously tons of power it's good fun and it seems to be at actually kind of lasting it's not wilting and that's really impressive even more so when you consider that the Vantage isn't exactly light it's 1745 kilos or over 3,800 despite the special effect squeals from the Michelin it just didn't seem to wilt and I love that you can really hustle this baby Aston it's not a super precise car but neither is it Scrappy you just get the sense it likes a bit of dry so what to make of this new Aston Martin Vantage is It Best in Class oh it's most powerful in class obviously I think it is a bit like a bonfil is it going to win the Oscars probably not but can I see it being a fan favorite doing incredibly well yes because it looks stunning it's got a huge amount of power and it's fun that's what you want from a baby Aston isn't [Music] [Music] it definitely a Daniel Craig not a George Len be okay

Channel: Hagerty

Views: 326,797

Keywords: Hagerty, Classic Car, Classic Cars, Hagerty Drivers Club, collector car, enthusiast car, collector cars, Henry Catchpole, The Driver's Seat, Car review, car reviews, car show, Aston Martin Vantage, V8 Vantage, Twin Turbo V8, V-8, AMG, James Bond, 007, Bond car

Id: -1QWQA3Egh4

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024