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So what’s the adVantage?

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Bret

Bret

Yoda
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Well I’ll tell ya. Road & Track has a short little article on the new V8 Vantage in this months issue.

While I have always loved the marque I have always thought of late that it was a bit soft for a super car. However having read the article - someone has been burning the midnight oil. To me the Vantage seems a lot more driver oriented than some of the vehicles to come out Aston Martin in a long time. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Missing is a rear seat the way too touchy feely wood grained interior for my tastes. From the driving stand point while there is admittedly less power than the Vantage’s bigger brothers it is actually lighter and has a real 6-speed transmission. Gone is the hated automatic transmission with it’s poser paddle shifter – that is by all accounts was so nanny-ish that it actually takes over or won’t let you down shift, when it thinks the driver is doing something notty.

IMHO the new Vantage looks cool & menacing from any angle and it has all the right styling cues that are so typical of what you’d expect from the marque that Bond counts on when chasing villains.

Not that I see myself sitting behind the wheel of one anytime soon. However I must admit that I looked over my finances and probably could pull it off. But that would mean selling the house, liquefying all of my stock options and 401K. Of course even if I did it I would never live long enough to enjoy it because the minute my wife found out she’d neuter me with a dull rusty old spoon. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Oh well - sometimes dreaming is all you can do.
 
Hmmmmmmmmmm. I don’t plan to have any kids. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, Aston Martin, rusty spoon. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
 
The other alternative of course is to marry someone who drools everytime she sees an AM. Now I just have to figure out 1: how to pay for one and 2: how to pry her fingers from the steering wheel when I figure out 1 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
I've wondered why Aston Martin didn't offer at least the option of a real manual transmission on the Vanquish and DB9. I would imagine that they'd probably say that there wasn't one that could handle the torque and power of the Vanquish motor, but IIRC, it doesn't make more power than the completely mental Virage Vantage, or the various special tuning modified Virages, and those could be had with an admittedly he-man heavy clutch and gearbox. The whole paddle shift thing still mystifies me-I suppose many upmarket manufacturers are offering them because Ferrari does and it's a popular option. But if I want to feel like I'm shifting gears on a video game, I'll fire up the Playstation...

-Wm.
 
The Vantage is an all around neat package. When you stack it up against others in the Aston Martin stable it is really the poor man’s version (if there is such a thing when referring to AMs /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif ) or entry level at the least.

Interestingly enough it is a little over a foot shorter in over all length, its wheel base just under 6”, is also about 350lbs lighter and has just 70HP less than it’s big brother the DB9. It is also a “Hatchback” and has more storage than the DB9 as well.

All that and it still manages to edge out its big brother in the quarter mile at 13.1 seconds by a tenth of a second. Of course I'm sure this would change if they put a real manual in the DB9.

I am still amazed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
 
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