Cars Reviews

The Geneva Motor Show is over, but the craptastic weather's following the whiny, overly privileged herd of automotive journos stampeding south for assorted first drives. Porsche's Cayman R drive meets up with pouring rain in Mallorca; by the time we're in the Canary Islands for a two-parter with the new Mercedes C-Class and SLK, it's frigid and windy.

The skies are going an even deeper shade of grey as I rebound once more off the Malaga airport, to southern Spain, for a first drive in the Aston Martin Vantage S and one in their all-new offering, the Virage. (More on that on March 21st.)

Then it hails. And then, it snows.

On paper, I clearly shivered more energy away than I could possibly pump through my veins in the form of caffeine, but it didn't matter once we pulled up in a fleet of black minivans to the gate at Ascari, a kind of adult Disneyland for speed addicts of the socially acceptable kind. Aston rolled open the paddock doors, and fired up the Vantage S' impeccably accented exhaust note. And damn if I didn't wake right up, brushing off epic jetlag to pile into a right-hand-drive roadster for my open-track laps.

The proper name is Ascari Race Resort, by the way, but in this tight-knit, well-heeled community it goes by its first name only. Drawing near its 10th anniversary, Ascari's a privateer track with slate-floored showers, a pretty fabulous restaurant, and staggering views of the mountains near Ronda, the town that gave birth to the bullfight. This isn't Nelson Ledges, or worse, if worse exists.

The track's a keen exercise for even the most talented. Ascari's a 3.5-mile-long, greatest-hits compilation of torturous esses, blurred-out straightaways that all but dead-end into 90-degree turns, and downhill grades that flip-flop between camber changes. In the lingo, it's a "technical" track--in the way neuroendocrinology is a technical expertise.

You can look very stupid here, very easily, but the Vantage S does its best to dust off your driving skills and showcase them in a most favorable, LED-intense light. The S slots above the V8 Vantage, what with its subtle tweaks and automated-manual transmission, but below its truly track-ready cousin, the GT4, and the monster V12 Vantage.

It has a name in common, and it also does what just about every other Aston Martin does with effortlessness. It soaks up attention with precise and exquisite details. It colors its grand-touring presentation with vivid, phenomenal roadgoing poise. And to a one, it makes Spain's aging sidewalk quarterbacks yell out: camio de Bond!

It's totally worth rolling top-down, even with blustery wind sawing at your eardrums, to hear those words. Worth sweating out equal amounts of cured ham and rioja, yet a week later. Worth a coach trip on Irish metal to Britain's least-sexy airport, to sleep in your clothes in a freezing room for six hours before you get on another plane bound for the busiest airport in the world. Read More......

While the DBS is being repeatedly abused on Bond film sets around the world and the V12 Vantage was recently confirmed for production, Aston Martin has set about updating its successful V8 Vantage with a host of technical and technological improvements, the first since the car was introduced for public sale in 2005. That sexy Aston silhouette remains untouched, fortunately, and there is enough extra performance to keep pace with the competition.

At the forefront of the update is an 11% boost in power to 420hp and a 15% rise in torque to 470Nm. The gains come from an additional 0.4L of displacement, bringing the V8 engine up to 4.7L. The new power and more responsive mid-range brings 0-60mph times down to just 4.7s and lets the Vantage carry on to a top speed of 180mph.

Because Aston is not a full-line car maker, and therefore doesn’t have a minicar to help improve its overall emissions and fuel consumption figures, the company has put a lot of energy into improving the efficiency of its engines. Even with the significant rise in power and performance, the new engine also improves fuel economy and CO2 emissions by 13%, helped in part by the improved Sportshift transmission.

But the update isn’t solely mechanical - there are significant upgrades inside the cabin as well. A revised center console houses new switchgear, and a new ECU replaces the previous model’s ‘V8 Vantage’ key. The ECU is a construction of glass, stainless steel and polycarbonate that functions as a key, though it is not one by any classical definition. It was first used on the 2007 DBS. Other interior upgrades include a hard disk-based navigation system that features full iPod or MP3 player integration and improved graphics.

On the outside, a new range of 19-inch alloy wheels will let the aficionado spot the new model from a distance, though it will carry on with the V8 Vantage’s winning looks otherwise. Read More......