Battle of the Super Cabrios: Aston Martin Vantage Roadster vs Ferrari Roma Spider

The Yorkshire Dales. The sun's out. The roads twist and flow. The Ribblehead viaduct was just back there, now we’re getting stone barns and gambolling lambs. Spring is in the air, roofs are down, warm air buffets the cockpits and all seems right with the world. If you were pottering along here in an MX-5 you’d be pretty certain life didn’t get much better. And you’d be right. An MX-5 would blend in better, tread more lightly, be more lamb-like than either the Vantage Roadster or Roma Spider. You could save yourself a fortune, and that would be a very Yorkshire thing to do.

They don’t really go in for a Prancing Horse up here. Earlier, driving through Hawes, I was feeling a little exposed. Rightly, since the word I caught on the breeze from a pedestrian was ‘topspot’. Or something like that. The Aston, subtler in Californian Sage (unless they knew it was called that) was greeted much more warmly. It’s clearly a more Yorkshire car.

But these are the cream of the £200k roadster crop. They’re more glamorous than a 911 Cabriolet, more honed than a Continental GTC and less tryhard than something mid-engined. The drop-top Vantage is brand new. A follow up to last year’s superb coupe, it carries over all the thunderous goodness of that twin turbo V8, trading a little chassis stiffness and hatchback versatility for a soft-top that drops in only 6.8secs.

Photography: Alex Tapley

The Ferrari requires twice as long – 13.5secs – to disassemble itself, but allows that to happen at up to 37, rather than 31mph. The Roma Spider has been around for a few years now, partnering a coupe version that we’ve previously found a little overcaffeinated. It replaces the folding hard-top Portofino and appears to take a step backwards by using a soft-top.

Swings and roundabouts. It’s a little darker inside, with a slightly smaller back window, but it stows away tightly enough to leave a 255 litre boot. Which is entirely inaccessible unless you’re on your knees. But at least it tucks the roof away beneath a lid. The Vantage just plonks it back, leaving all sorts of unsightly gaps and holes around the edges. And raised it looks like a turret, where the Ferrari’s roof is sleek and integrated.

What a corking looking pair they are, though. I mean seriously, do cars get more emotive than this? The Ferrari has an edge of controversy. From some angles it’s sublime, from others the front arch is too tall, the rear deck too high. You can see why they had to do that, trying to package in rear seats, but why bother? They’re fantastically compromised.

As with the hard-top Vantage, the Roadster is a strict two seater. The coupe has a big boot that’s open through into the cabin, here the cockpit is tighter, more enclosed. But also more welcoming than the Ferrari’s. The Roma’s high sides and upright console push back towards you, as if you’ve got T-Rex arms and everything is jostling for attention. Attention it doesn’t deserve given the state of the steering wheel’s haptic controls. How much longer have we got to put up with this, Ferrari? How can a firm that came up with something as brilliantly simple and logical (and widely copied) as the manettino think this is acceptable?

Yes, there’s a central touchscreen and that’s fine (unless you’re viewing in direct sunlight), yet the Aston is easier to operate on the move and, where the Ferrari’s cockpit is constantly reminding you of how sporty it is, the Aston asks less of you. Want to just kick back and burble about? It’s there for you.

The Ferrari pesters you. Its seats are firmer, the steering sharper, the engine note is higher, the responses quicker. Don’t get us wrong, it will pootle, but it’s a slightly busier, more highly strung car. This all stems back to the engine, a flat plane crank V8 that sounds more nasally than the Aston’s cross plane motor. Otherwise both have similar genetics: twin turbos, capacity of about four litres, over 600bhp and oodles of torque. We used to celebrate this Ferrari motor for its astonishing lag free response. Time’s moved on. Yes, the Ferrari cleverly manages torque, so each gear gets more than the one before, but the Aston doesn’t bother with such intricate niceties, it just opens the floodgates.

Aston has realised a powerful truth recently. Too much is very amusing. And 590lb ft at 2,750rpm is way too much. Hilariously too much. You just leave it in fourth and dip into the torque when the mood takes you. Which is often because the rumbling V8 sounds so good and the rear squats and wriggles so enticingly.

There’s no doubt the Ferrari is more sophisticated and more thoroughly engineered. The torque management is exceptional, the twin clutch gearbox is crisp and precise, its throttle is more accurate, the traction control more subtle – the whole way along the powertrain, from combusting fuel at one end to smearing rubber on road at the other, the Ferrari is intellectually superior. But Aston make good noise, go fast, beat chest, ug, ug, ug. It’s a more primal experience.

You’d be forgiven for now imagining the Vantage Roadster is a car with looks to die for and appalling manners. That’s not quite it. Look past the elegance of those lines and spot the more brutish proportions – the short wheelbase, the wide stance. It sits on the road like a boxer. And moves like one too. Loves a hook into corners, a jab out the other side, a punch up the straights. The Ferrari is more martial arts. Think balance and harmony, a sense of precision and flow.

I haven’t come across many roads that buck and weave, toss and turn as much as the road over Whipperdale Bank. In many ways this is the perfect testing ground for a convertible, because the chassis is in a constant state of flex. Aston has reinforced the Vantage’s aluminium chassis with extra shear panels, changes to the way it connects with the body, recalibrated rear dampers and retuned gearbox mounts. Although Ferrari is a little coy about exactly what’s been done, it does admit the whole sill is new, the pillars and windscreen surround strengthened. All told it comes in at 84kg heavier than the coupe, the Aston’s up 60kg.

Across this moorland road the Aston loses its composure first. It wants to get its teeth into a road, but can’t cling on to itself as well as the coupe when it does. It doesn’t do anything alarming, but its movements become a little vague and your confidence ebbs a bit. Ramping up the modes helps. In Sport Plus the ride doesn’t deteriorate much, but body control is significantly tauter, the slack and delay curtailed. The Ferrari is more together, the chassis resisting flex better, the steering retaining its precision. If you want to drive hard on tricky roads, have the Ferrari.

In less trying conditions the Aston is, narrowly, the top choice. Neither is a super silent cruiser with the roof up – background hum and buzz penetrates both the Roma’s five layer lid and the Vantage’s eight (presumably thinner) layers. But on top of that the Aston’s ride is always a little busier, has more unwanted movement in it – it’s only when the dampers are pressurised in corners that the Vantage genuinely settles. Its manners, however, are generally calmer. The Ferrari is constantly reminding you it’s a Ferrari, the Aston is better at switching off and just cruising. If you want to rumble satisfyingly across the Dales, it’s there for you.

The Ferrari doesn’t settle down and allow distance to slip by as easily, but this is a notably calmer car to drive than the Roma coupe – Ferrari says it was intentional for the Spider to be a mite softer. And it does have a very neat trick. Roof down I thought that the Aston had easily the less turbulent cockpit, as I assumed the Roma’s flip up tray that forms the rear seat backrest and springs up through 90° to create a flat deck would do nothing. Emphatically wrong. It actually turns out that this might be the best bit of work that Ferrari’s aerodynamicists have ever done.

The Ferrari feels the better built, more thoroughly engineered car. But then so it should for a list price some £35,000 above the Aston’s. And that’s before options, where this car is bejeweled to the tune of £113,000. Like the multilayer Rosso Portofino paint? Us too, but not for £23,976. The pop up spoiler on the back deck looks daft as it is without paying £3,919 to have it in carbon fibre. The costs are bananas: £3,214 for a front radar, £3,695 for the (admittedly excellent) Magneride dampers, £4,142 for the tinny ‘premium’ hi-fi.

The Ferrari is the hardcore driver’s choice, but is that what you want from a super roadster?

All told this Aston is £241,000, although we do think the £10k carbon ceramics should be standard and the £15k for this Q Provenance paint looks suspiciously like Aston is learning bad habits. But overall it seems to offer significantly better value. On residuals, nearly new Roma Spiders with a few hundred miles are listing at around £220k – they’re losing whatever options value they’re carrying almost immediately. Year old Vantage coupes (the roadster is too new to feature) are also being listed at around their pre-options new price.

On balance the Aston is probably doing a bit better, but either way you are going to be losing tens of thousands of pounds in the first year. That Vantage coupe we rate as a 9/10 car – we love it. The hard-top Roma is a 7/10. The soft-top Ferrari is a better car than its coupe cousin, while Aston’s latest roadster isn’t quite as complete and well rounded as the coupe version. Which all makes this test a close run thing.

We’re giving victory – as we did late last year when the Vanquish beat the 12Cilindri – to the Aston Martin, and for similar reasons. The Ferrari is the hardcore driver’s choice, but is that what you want from a super roadster? More likely you just want a good time, and the Aston delivers that better. We could point to value or cabin ergonomics as reasons for the win, but as much as anything it comes down to charisma and that thumping, thunderous engine.