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

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 reassuring for family, and the same goes for the new Aston Martin Vantage, the locks, the V8 placed in front,

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the rear wheels. This is a script we've seen before, except Daniel Craig brought a little more muscle to the tie-in, so this latest Vantage brings a little more power to the baby Aston. If this movie rattles your ball and rakes your moon, then please consider joining. Haggy Drivers Club, among other things, you get an award-winning magazine and 24/7 roadside assistance.

For more information just click the link in the description below, let's take a moment to appreciate how good this looks because I think it's almost easy. To overlook it because the design, well, it could almost be from 10 years ago, it has a lot of 177s, but that's not a bad thing and we get used to seeing Aston Martins like that, but it's cool. I love the specs on this one. silver car that kind of bronze wheels I wasn't sure about the green calipers, but I think they work, there's a bit of interest there and they highlight the green of the Aston Martin badge here, this has it, the good thing about it.

Of course, the 165,000 Vantage now looks a lot like the 80,000 db12 that was released last year. It has exactly the same tire size as the db12 2 and the same top speed and now with its massive 656 BHP it has almost as much power in In fact, apart from the number of

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s, the specifications of the two cars look very similar in many ways. aspects, however, as soon as you're behind the wheel it's instantly obvious that the Vantage drives quite differently, this has quite the soundtrack that the db12 didn't. Whatever the configuration, this has always been a great sounding engine and even in its quietest and quietest configuration, I have it at the moment, it is full of character.

Dial it up to 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's great, the steering too, the steering is quick on db12, but it feels more direct, more connected, a little bit heavier, it's not a sensation-packed steering system, but There's a real sense of connection and precision with it. It gives you confidence, you instantly notice the efforts the engineers have gone to to remove any rubber from the system, but I still wish Aston could have copied McLaren and retained the hydraulic assist for proper steering. the old school I think the steering wheel and the Vantage would be better if it were slimmed down a bit too, but they have the tactile feel elsewhere in the cabin.

The interior is certainly a big improvement over the old Vantage. If you have seen db12, then all this will seem like it to you. very familiar, just oriented slightly differently, but overall it's exactly the same and it's just a huge improvement. Is it the most beautiful interior I have ever seen? No, but it works fine and not everything is on the touch screen and obviously things like. these are really nice to use elsewhere, there is still some sort of old Mercedes switch here and the window switches seem to be from the dawn of window switches still, but overall a good place to be in this one part of the south.

Spain, near Seville, is also a nice and pleasant place to be, that was the incredible Rio Tinto, which well, it's quite extraordinary, it would make a good backdrop for the villain Bon. I believe that a river that runs blood red is actually incredibly acidic, so it has a pH value of about two because of the minerals in it and they have used that to predict well what it would be like if they found water on Mars. Elon Musk is reportedly often found bathing in its waters anyway, back at the new Vantage. which is in no way strange in the way it drives, even in its default setting it now feels like a much more direct car in the corners and if you turn it on it goes up to Sport Plus and you really get extra Edge as soon as As when cornering you feel that it is resting on the side walls of the tires.

It's a wide car, but actually because it's very responsive and grippy, it feels quite compact because it's front-engined and rear-wheel drive. We don't have the rear wheel steering it's dynamically, it's a pretty easy car to understand, you can definitely feel the change in damping as you go through the modes, these new Bilstein DTX shocks are quite firm, I think in their main handling , this is a smooth road, but it is definitely When dealing with the smaller bumps, much of this new Precision is due to greater rigidity of the car's structure and you can see some Viagra in this chassis when you open the hood, built Handcrafted in Great Britain, final inspection by Dale Clark.

Well, on Dale for building a big I think it's worth taking a look at the engine because we'll get to the differences in a second, but just to see again how far back in the chassis it is, what kind of you make a lot of sense when you drive the car? and how centralized all the mass feels, you see it just behind the front axle line, here the engine obviously, to create all that extra power, has been revised, but I think more than perhaps I would have thought just by looking the initial specifications. It's still four liters, but the block has been slightly revised, new camshafts and you've obviously got a bigger turbo sitting inside that hot V, all to produce, I'll say it again, 656 brake horsepower and the monstrous baby Aston for reference, which is 153.

Braking power increased compared to the old car, while torque also increased from 505 to 590 feet. This is an engine that loves the mid range, that kind of 3 to 5,000 RPM is its happy place, possibly the let down is that you don't get a really scary top end, but it gives up its performance more easily than others, which It means you can access it most of the time now that we obviously have the paddles attached to the back of the steering wheel instead of the steering column I think. just personal preferences on which one you like best. I always quite like the old static palettes.

I wish it had a dual clutch gearbox. They say there are reasons to keep the ZF Auto here and it's not bad at all and in some respects. I think the way a lot of these will probably be driven most of the time you could argue it's the right solution but I think for the EST sports car in the range or the sportier car certainly compared to the db12 It would be nice to have a DCT and just that little bit more connection to the transmission, just a little bit faster, 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 it. their slogan of designed for real

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s like Broen in the world is not enough, however let's hope it's in the works of course this also has a shorter final drive and that's lovely because it feels like it runs between each of these curves in this incredibly serpentine. On the road, this car is better than the old Vantage and it certainly is. I don't feel like there's anything innovative here, there's no real technology story, but there is a feel-good factor to

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this car and that really should.

Not to be underestimated, the question is whether the Feelgood factor continues if you start driving it like an entire F1 field is within reach, it's time to swap the silver car for the green safety car and take this 202mph Vantage to the scorching heat of the Monte Blanco circuit. This may not be an absolutely natural car for the track, but having a main road that is almost a kilometer long gives us the opportunity to test some of that 260 km per hour top speed. The big carbon ceramic brakes on this car really work well. I feel really, really confident, inspiring movement, but it feels good, you get an idea of ​​exactly where the front is straight away, although follow mode seemed like the obvious setting to dial in, it was immediately clear that the dampers were too stiff. for the bumps of Mont Blanco so I made them sporty again which improved things considerably, perfect 50/50 weight balance and you can tell I like the fact that you can load the front end up which It means you can feel like you're pushing the car without it just being about oversteering.

Having said that you oversteer, we have an n-stage traction control system on this, just like we've seen before on BMW and obviously Mercedes AMG T. but to be honest, this thing is so well balanced that you can actually turn it completely towards not turning it off. We also have some yellow carbon fiber here which is actually quite nice. I'm not sure I thought of that. I'd like to, but it's reminiscent of the old carbon Kevlar weave you see in the footwell of an F40 or something, but without the green glue maybe I'd have my stitching in green just to make me think about it every time.

Even though it's moving on the brakes, you get a really nice feel through the pedal, in fact, up here, just balance, this is a long, tricky corner, it just feels like it jumps a little bit bumpy here, so don't mind. I like it a lot, but again. you can really grab it by the throat, it's not precise, it's not some kind of G3 RS, it doesn't feel completely at home on the track, but since it has good balance and obviously tons of power, it's a lot of fun and seems to be in. It's actually a long-lasting thing, it doesn't wither and that's really impressive, even more so when you take into account that the Vantage isn't exactly light: it weighs 1745 kilos or more than 3800, despite the special effects squeaks of the Michelin, it just doesn't It seemed to wilt and I love it. that you can really rush this little Aston, it's not a super precise car but it's not Scrappy either, you just get the feeling that it likes it a little dry, so what to make of this new Aston Martin Vantage?

He's the best in his class, oh he's the most powerful in class, obviously, I think he's a bit of a bonfil. He probably won't win the Oscars, but I can see him as a fan favorite doing incredibly well? Yes, because it looks awesome. It has a lot of power and is fun. That's what I want from a baby Aston, isn't it definitely a Daniel Craig, not a George Len, okay?