28 Jan 05
Picture the scene. We're flashing through the Arabian desert at something near 160mph. The little black sports car is towing a vortex of sand as it howls towards the horizon, made closer by the gentle incline ahead. When we reach the incline we realise it's a bridge but it's too late for caution now. As we reach the crest and the road falls away beneath us, the back of the car breaks loose. In truth it's just a shimmy, a kick of the hips; there's no time for corrective lock to be applied - only after the event do I raise my eyebrows and the driver shrugs his shoulders as the Aston Martin continues on its way, shrieking into the sun. Four minutes later, we are ten miles away.
There are lots of moments like this when you're prototyping. New and untried cars are fickle in their nature and it's clear in that particular moment and in those specific conditions that, as we went over the bridge a touch too much air had been allowed under the back of the car making it, for an instant, aerodynamically less than ideally stable. It's good that it's happened. By the time this new V8 Vantage goes on sale in the autumn, all chance of a recurrence of this event in the hands of a member of the public will have been eliminated. It's why we're here.
Correction: it's why Chris Porritt and his team of development engineers are here. I'm just piggy-backing on their programme, getting in their way and asking if, instead of collecting the critical data they need to make this car production ready, they wouldn't mind instead parking it in a sand dune. Where it will get stuck. Which it does. Their humour does not waver for a moment: out here you're hot enough under the collar just sitting in the shade.
For all the oceans of ink expelled on the DB9 of late, it's upon the squat, broad shoulders of this Vantage that the future prosperity of Aston Martin really depends. By this time next year, Aston will be building more of them than the DB9 and Vanquish combined, and selling them to a new generation of young hotshots whose aspirations until now have been to drive a Porsche 911. And wonderful though the 911 is, it's not exactly exclusive any more. Unlike an Aston Martin. Each year around 3000 Vantages will be built in Aston's shiny new factory at Gaydon, bringing Aston's total output to around 5000 units, hitherto an undreamt of volume for one of the world's best known, least productive marques. If this figure is reached, Aston Martin will make a few hundred more cars each year than Ferrari.
