‘The Vantage launched Aston Martin into the most successful period of its long and often precarious history’
One by one they pull out of the layby. The two V8s go first, the open-throated pulsing of their exhausts punching holes in the air before the V12 takes off in pursuit, its richer, keening note cutting through them. It’s a veritable feast for the ear and, it has to be said, the three are pretty easy on the eye, too. Hard to credit that it’s more than 20 years since the VH Vantage first appeared. On today’s evidence its appeal has diminished not one jot.
The public got its first glimpse of the baby Aston in the form of the AMV8 Vantage concept, unveiled at the Detroit motor show in 2003 – the same year that Aston Martin opened its brand new factory at Gaydon in Warwickshire. The Vantage wasn’t quite the first model built there – that honour went to the DB9 – but, when production finally started in late 2005, the Vantage quickly took the lion’s share of sales and launched Aston Martin into the most successful period of its long and often precarious history.
It would stay in production – with the V12 joining the range in 2009 – all the way through to 2018, by which point a remarkable 25,050 examples had been sold. No other Aston comes close, and it achieved all this by staying true to AM values but packaging them in a way that was attractive and accessible (original list price was a whisker under 80 grand) to the widest possible audience.
That still holds true today. If you’ve always hankered after an Aston but don’t want to be saddled with a whole heap of temperament and expense, then the 2005-2018 Vantage is awfully tempting. I should know. A little over three years ago I succumbed and bought one. Very similar, in fact, to the red car you
