Aston Martin Vantage review

The Vantage costs from £165,000, which is a big step up over the old car and plonks it smack bang between the 911 Turbo and Turbo S (at least until a facelifted Turbo appears sometime in 2025), or about £10,000 less than a Ferrari Roma.

Philosophically the Vantage and Roma are perhaps the closest rivals, but Aston’s strategy seems to target the 911 Turbo… perhaps because that’s where the volume is and because most Romas sold just seem to be snapped up by serious Ferrari owners hoping to keep their name on the list for the next limited edition model. The Vantage is less hyperactive than the Ferrari; no bad thing.

Choice extras? Well, at this level a few extra trinkets won’t make too big a dent on summer holiday plans, so we’d grab the lovely carbon seats, carbon-ceramic brakes for endurance and because they’re lighter and will improve the ride quality. Oh, and the Bowers & Wilkins hifi. Otherwise, we’ll take it as it comes. Just in a nice colour, please.

It’s got a 78-litre tank, which – provided you can match the 23.3mpg official figure – should give you a 400-mile range. In practice it’ll be around 280-300 miles. But it is efficient on a long run. We regularly saw it achieve over 30mpg. CO2 stands at 274g/km.