Category: Convertibles 
Price Range: £85,000 to £96,000
Looks, handling, sensational soundtrack, badge, usability, compact dimensions.
Relative lack of performance, price.
Our favourite Aston in the range, almost worth the money over a Jag XKR.
Supercar owners have become a very demanding bunch in recent years. No longer will they accept cars with flaky quality, questionable reliability and switchgear pinched from a humdrum hatch.
In response, Aston Martin has radically changed the way it designs and builds cars, introducing modern production techniques at its state-of-the-art design and manufacturing facility in Gaydon. It's even gone as far as pinching quality control staff from Toyota.
There is some shared switchgear from former parent Ford's parts bin, but it's all employed in a subtle manner. Beautifully stitched leather wraps the dash and only mass-produced air vents and unattractive dull black plastic surrounding the centre console detract from a feeling that the even the smallest of Astons can play the exotic card.
The sense of quality is enhanced by the doors and bootlid, which shut with a reassuring Germanic clunk, and rotary air conditioning controls that spin with a damped deliberate manner a world away from mainstream models.
To the naked eye, panel and interior fit are near-faultless. However, our car loses points for an A-pillar that creaked incessantly and a sat nav screen that rattled and fizzed when raised.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Aston Martin V8 Vantage
wrote on 07 07 2008
wrote on 08 11 2006
wrote on 25 07 2006