Still like the old Aston Vantage? Two will race at Le Mans

Aston Martin’s brand new V8 Vantage will contest the Le Mans 24 Hour race for the first time this weekend. Big test. Many hours. Lots of pressure.

Two new Vantages will compete in a bid to replicate Aston’s 2017 GTE Pro class win with the old. They pack the same AMG-sourced (but Aston tuned) 4.0-litre turbo V8 as the new Vantage road car, producing somewhere hovering around the 530bhp mark, all packaged into that lightweight aluminium chassis.

It’s rear-wheel drive, with a six-speed Xtrac sequential gearbox and a mechanical limited-slip differential in place of the road-going Vantage’s eight-speed auto and electronic diff. It also weighs just 1,245kg, which is significantly lighter than the road car.

But if the car old Vantage racecar it replaces is still your thing, do not worry. For alongside the pair of brand new luminous Aston Martin Vantage GTEs gunning for a class win at Le Mans this weekend, there’ll be a pair of the outgoing V8 Vantage GTE racers too.

Yup, the naturally aspirated V8 racer, which has seen its fair-share of trophies over the many, many years it has campaigned, will be driven in the GTE AM (amateur) category. So if you happen to be at Le Mans this year, we highly recommend keeping an ear out for the ol’ girl. She sounds amazing.