
Best Sports Car: Aston Martin Vantage
The burly two-door coupe/roadster is is an embodiment of peak Aston.
If cars exist to reflect one’s character in four-wheeled form, the James Bond as interpreted by Daniel Craig would not be pursuing international supervillains in a timeless silver DB5. Roger Moore’s debonair, silk-cravat-clad English gent? Now that we can imagine, accompanied by a perfectly timed single eyebrow raise. But the tortured public-school hooligan enacted from Casino Royale until No Time to Die? Not so much. If Robb Report was permitted to write the next Bond script, we would surely cast 007 in something uncompromising, something attuned to his steely, steroidal temperament. Something like an Aston Martin Vantage.
Owing to its association with the enduring spy franchise, it is Aston’s emotive DB line that has tugged at the public’s heart strings, but in truth, the car cognoscenti have historically feted the Vantage: the burly two-door coupe/roadster has consistently presented a faster, more dynamic, more thrilling and, ultimately, more fun proposition.
The latest Vantage is all this and more, and in any other Car of the Year era, one where the luxury-car arms-race was not so intense, the cocktail of old-school power-engineering and next-gen hardware and software would culminate in the Aston donning our champion of champions crown.
And while the Vantage is positioned as the DB12’s stronger, tougher older brother, it will not bully drivers, unless encouraged to—on a track or a speed-camera-less B-road, for instance. This is not a spiteful machine. Even hopeless speed junkies will be happy pootling around at a genteel pace. With the requisite level of the marque’s renowned interior luxury and comfort, the Vantage is an embodiment of peak Aston. And, if there is any justice in the world, a future screen star in the making.
The Numbers
Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 489 kW
Torque: 800 Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Acceleration (0-100 km/h): 3.5 seconds
Top speed: 325 km/h

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Courtesy of Patricks



