Aston Martin V8 Vantage | REVIEW by AutoTopNL

For sale at

What’s up ladies and gentlemen and welcome to this pov review by auto top now my name is max and today we are filling in a big ass blind spot on our channel because this is one of the favorite cars of both martin and myself um it is the aston martin v8 vantage we’ve been talking about this car about buying this car for well about 10 years i think and we finally got

To drive one thanks to jesse barce where this car is for sale so if you’re interested go check it out it is a beautiful v8 vantage from 2006 uh all the info will be in the description go check it out so today i’m going to show you around it uh we’ll take a look at the spec we’ve got it in today and then we’ll take it for a little drive on this beautiful road no

Automan unfortunately today for insurance reasons but still a lot to enjoy alrighty so the aston martin v8 vantage this car kind of saved aston martin it was sold quite a bit i think it was somewhere in 2008 they sold the 10 000 v8 vantage which was a big deal back then because those are a lot of estimates uh they don’t usually build that many so this car kind of

Meant a revival of the brand because they got an influx in money and they could really really use that and it is the baby aston so it’s supposed to compete with like a porsche 911 that’s its main rival uh but i do think that this is so much cooler it is i mean it is still one of the most beautiful coupes ever built i think if you look at this car from there’s not

A bad angle from the side the side profile is so gorgeous oh man it the front is amazing the rear is amazing it just it’s perfect basically this is a perfect design designed by ian cullum and then henrik fisker took over when they were at like 80 percent of the design this car ran from 2005 all the way to 2018 in the latest uh v12 vantage amr i think that’s

The last one they made with the seven speed doglak gearbox manual so there have been 24 different versions of the vantage over that period of time and today we’ve got the base version so we’ve got the first one the 4.3 liter v8 with 385 horsepower and then in 2008 came the first update when it went to 4.7 liters v8 but we do have the most beautiful wheels you

Could get on this car absolutely gorgeous in that dark gray finish with that dark grey car i just love the look of that and behind that we’ve got brembo brakes really good brakes actually braking performance is quite awesome and then we’ve got these bridgestone potenza tires 19-inch wheels absolutely beautiful beautiful vent here on the side little english flag

Right there and then when we move down the side beautiful roofline sloping to that rear and then the gorgeous rear lights with that exhaust integrated into the bumper and then of course this is like a hatchback so it’s a bit more practical you’ve got a decent amount of boot space i would say and then you’ve got some more up here and some more behind the seats

As you can see so it’s it’s quite a nice gt car because you can take quite some stuff with you on your journey wherever it may take you and then if we take a look at the doors with that beautiful hinge upwards with a little hydraulic assistance so the door is a bit lighter super nice and then we’ll take a look at the engine so that’s a 4.3 liter v8 with 385

Horsepower and 400 newton meters somewhere around that number um so it’s not mega powerful it weighs 1600 kilos so it’s not super heavy either but it is a very nice amount of power because you can actually use it now as i said in 2008 came an update 4.7 liters v8 but there have been many many updates many different versions motorsport derived versions as well so

We had the m400 which was a special edition of this 4.3 liter v8 with 400 horsepower but you could also get like a pro drive kit which upped the power a little bit you could get a power kit from aston martin as well that up to power to 400 something horsepower 420 i think so during its time there have been many many different versions of this engine but it is

Basically loosely based on the aj v8 by jaguar it does have a different cylinder block heads camshaft connecting rods inlet manifold exhaust manifold that’s it’s all different it’s basically a different engine and is only in an smrton but the architecture loosely is based on the jaguar v8 and of course it also came with a v12 in the front which is ridiculous so

On the inside we have a very nice spec and i have to say i am quite surprised by this interior because i think it looks absolutely stunning there are a few things that do feel a bit cheapish i would say and a bit dated of course you’ve got the screen on top here with the old volvo navigation stuff which is absolutely horrible i don’t know if there’s actually

A button to open that thing no we’ll just leave it closed because it doesn’t really do the car justice to open that because it is horrible other than that the leather we’ve got this brown leather on top and then this cognac leather down there and this super light alcantara headlining it is a very special spec it’s called all the peanut butter colors basically

And then here some nice bracing it’s such a special car it is 15 years old this car um but i think all the important stuff is still great beautiful dials as well with of course the inverted ref counter that runs counterclockwise and a nice aston martin steering wheel there are some volvo and ford parts here and there of course because asa martin was owned by ford

Back then but it’s not bad actually i was expecting it to be worse um so i’ll open the door for the startup so quite a civilized start and i do think that this car has had a very popular upgrade for this car which is the uh the fuse for the exhaust valve has been removed or at least it has been altered because normally the exhaust valve will open at like three

Or four thousand rpm but with this one it’s always open and it sounds absolutely delicious oh listen to that that is outrageous it sounds so incredible uh it is honestly one of the best sounding cars i think uh i’ve ever driven it of like stock cars this is a stock exhaust it sounds so freaking good now of course we’ve got a manual gearbox six speed and

You could also get this with an automatic a roboticized manual or whatever it’s called a six-speed sport shift gearbox but that one is horrible apparently so stay away from that one please go for a manual because it is super super nice okay let’s go for a little drive we have a light bulb failure so that’s why we have that little uh warning light there but nothing

To worry about all right so so driving this car uh clutch gearbox is quite heavy but it kind of fits this car really well because the car it feels like a little it feels like a little european muscle car i mean you’ve got that beautiful v8 sound of course in the background not as loud as it is on the outside it’s been filtered quite well and you have a lot of

Engine sound in here which is really nice too but if we open the windows just a little bit let’s see what happens you do get a nice growl from the exhaust when you open the window handling wise i have to say as i said brakes are really good but handling is very good as well so turn in super sharp the car feels really light you’ve got a 49 51 weight distribution in

This car so that’s near perfect oh man it is a very nice car it has held up beautifully over time and it it makes me really want one uh these 4.3 liters are pretty affordable nowadays of course i mean always go for one that has been maintained properly but the 4.7 are quite a bit more expensive than the 4.3 because they have a little bit more power and because

They have had a couple of other updates uh that goes for everything about this car basically the later uh you get the more the more expensive they get because that because the better they got so there have been a lot of like suspension braking engine engine management upgrades updates uh for this car during its life um of course also because it’s been around

For a long time but but also because aston martin changed quite a bit uh in quite small increments so they sold just over 15 000 of these vantages and i mean as i said there are so many different variants there’s always something to choose oh that’s nice that is oh man it’s it’s not really that quick and it’s got a it’s called very long gearing so very long

Gears that make it feel even less quick basically acceleration wise but oh man it sounds so great and i have to say the the biggest surprise for me driving this car is the handling it just feels so light on its feet it feels agile it feels it feels eager to to attack a nice road of course it is basically a gt but it is a little gt you know it’s a gt that enjoys

A mountain road oh awesome absolutely awesome so zero to 100 should be done in five seconds when it was new we’ve been able to do 5.8 in very cold slightly damp conditions so maybe five and a half seconds or a little bit quicker than that would be possible but five seconds would be very difficult but that’s not really what this car is about top speed is

Like 282 kilometers an hour but it’s really about just enjoying the drive enjoying the sound enjoying the coolness of an aston martin because everyone loves an aston right it’s just no one is going to hate you when you turn up in this car it it’s just such a likable machine oh man and it can be yours as i said it is for sale so it’s not that expensive anymore

Of course after this game the new vantage which has the four liter amg engine v8 which is also super nice but it it does feel a lot different compared to this car this car feels old-school and it sounds like a nascar v8 it just it sounds so special and it is it is very it’s a very emotional car to drive because it’s the opposite of rational if you know what i

Mean it’s just it’s not about numbers it’s not about performance per se it’s about having a good time and about this freaking sound oh that’s great okay i’m going to end it here because i ran out of gas so i hope you enjoyed this video as i said go check out jesse barsa where this car is for sale you can also check out this video on the right or go check out

This playlist make sure you’re subscribed if you’re not a subscriber yet and i’ll see you at the next video bye guys

Transcribed from video
Aston Martin V8 Vantage | REVIEW by AutoTopNL By AutoTopNL