Progress report: Aston Martin Vantage 1999 vs 2021

Well, these two look different.

Where Vantage used to be a suffix, it’s now a model line. So while in grey we have the Vantage in its current iteration – a punchy two-seat sports car with myriad rivals – the darker colour is worn by the Vantage version of the Aston Martin Virage, a land yacht of a Nineties coupe with four seats wrapped in the leather of nine cows. Seriously.

So what’s its story?

The Virage didn’t go down too well, so for the uprated Vantage version, Aston pulled out all the stops. As well as a Brutalist makeover to give its styling some serious beef, the 5.3-litre V8 up front was treated to not just one, but two superchargers, in turn becoming the most powerful production engine in the world. Until the McLaren F1 landed a few years later, at least. The changes were so vast, Aston chiselled the word Virage out of its name entirely.

How much power?

As standard, the Vantage moved its two tonnes with 550bhp. But the car you’re looking at here has a little more. This is the car in end-of-line Le Mans trim, with the optional ‘V600’ upgrade beneath its bonnet. Which means there’s 600bhp (and a suspiciously neat 600lb ft) yielding a 200mph top speed. Apparently. The V600 kit was developed by Aston Works Service’s ‘behind the green curtain’ crew, a special projects team that sounds like a less gimmicky, more rogue version of the current ‘Q by Aston Martin’. And thus arguably much more ‘Q’ in character.

I assume it must be quick…

It doesn’t provide the instant hit of a modern turbo car, more the unstoppable swelling force only an old oversized engine with two socking great Eaton superchargers can demonstrate. It’s like the car is filling its lungs before breathing out, hard. Hook this up to a modern paddleshifter and you’d drive yourself straight into a prison cell, but the long, forceful gearshifts its five-speed manual requires perfectly punctuate your pace and keep you prudent. As does the light steering fed through a lorry-sized wheel propped at an absurd angle.

Does it handle?

The Vantage’s 4.7 metres and 1,970 kilos are disguised surprisingly well right until you have to slow it down for a second-gear corner. It’s a ‘slow in, fast out’ kind of car, not one you truly relish twists and turns in. In fact, I’d relish a long, empty runway and a white-knuckle crack at its fabled top speed. Beside the four-seater with the plush headrests, the newer, 503bhp iteration flavour of Vantage can’t help but feel lithe and agile, not least for its lack of rear seats and its less useful boot. It’s flighty and aggressive where its grandfather is languid until riled.

So it’s a much better sports car?

Oh yes. Yet it also exhibits the same muscle car vibe as the car 20-odd years older; its weight and width feel just as evident, even if the newer Vantage’s steering reactions and cleverer electronics inspire several layers of extra confidence. It still feels like a clumsy corner exit could overcome the lot, especially in manual trim with a gearbox that’s even more brusque than the V600’s. A dog-leg layout feels perfect with five speeds, but with seven? It blitzes your thinking power like a NutriBullet. Smoothness doesn’t come in the first few miles, possibly not the first few hundred. But there’s still an awful lot to love. Wouldn’t you rather have an iffy manual than no manual at all?

What have we learned?

Well, I grew up with the older Vantage here embodying what I thought ‘Aston Martin’ meant. Something every Dr Bez-era car I subsequently drove as an adult – delicate little DB9s and the like – felt quite at odds with. But the occasionally recalcitrant transmission of this new manual Vantage immediately made me feel like I was manhandling the brutish Aston I’d always dreamed of, and driving the two alongside each other reveals more shared DNA than their wildly different looks betray. The Vantage badged has moved from the boot-lid of the world’s most powerful billiards room to a punchy 911 rival in less than two decades, but it’s clung onto some bolshy characteristics with it. Jolly good.

1999 Aston Martin Vantage V600
5340cc twin-supercharged V8, RWD, five-speed manual
600bhp, 600lb ft, 0-62mph in 3.9secs, 200mph (claimed...)
1,970kg
£233,000 new, c£500,000 now

2021 Aston Martin Vantage
3,982cc twin-turbocharged V8, RWD, seven-speed manual
503bhp, 505lb ft, 0-62mph in 4.0secs, 200mph
1,499kg
£114,850 new

Photography: Mark Riccioni