The Aston Martin Vantage’s eventual replacement isn’t due until 2018, and Aston Martin’s arguably too prominent VH architecture is being revised for the very thing.
Before that there’ll be a new DB9, after which all Aston Martins will be visually and mechanically more differentiated, but in the meantime Aston has to make the best of what it has.
Oh look: new colours. I hesitate to say it, but it feels like Aston is about to enter a Bugatti Veyron/late Lamborghini Gallardo phase. The age of waiting. The age of the Aston Martin special edition.
This one is called the N430. It’s a V8 Vantage but with Vantage ‘S’ mechanicals (bringing ten more horses to match the numerals stitched into the headrests), and ‘S’ suspension and steering.
There’s also quite a long list of extras, supplied as standard including five colours like the Alloro Green (‘race’) pictured above. All the base colours are classy, to our eyes. Then there are the contrast cant rails, grille surround and diffuser. Those are… well, why don’t we move on?
Dynamically, things are as we’ve found them previously, which is no bad thing at all. The past two times a Vantage has been eligible for entry in our Britain’s Best Driver’s contest, it has finished on the podium (V8 Vantage S, and V12 Vantage S).