New Aston Martin Vantage Roadster gets fastest production roof

Aston pins hopes on new Roadster to shore up sales of coupé; priced from £126,950
12 February 2020

Aston Martin has revealed the new Vantage Roadster, which the company hopes will provide a boost to underwhelming Vantage sales. The Porsche 911 Cabriolet rival costs from £126,950 and is available to order now, with deliveries beginning in the second quarter of this year.

That price would have been a modest £6000 increase over that of the hard-top but, as part of a round of updates for the 2021 model year, the list price of the coupé has been reduced from £120,900 to £114,800.

The convertible Vantage is said to “amplify the emotional appeal” of the two-seater and receives what Aston claims is the fastest fully automatic soft-top hood in the business, going from opened to closed and vice versa in under seven seconds at speeds of up to 31mph.

The roof itself adds a modest 60kg to the overall weight of the Vantage thanks to a ‘Z-fold’ roof mechanism and lightweight structural bracing. It means the Roadster, which uses the same 503bhp 4.0-litre V8 as the coupé, is capable of 0-60mph in 3.7sec and a top speed of 190mph, figures that are 0.2sec and 5mph slower than those of the hard-top car.

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Aston says the Roadster retains the coupé’s “strong dynamic ability and sporting character with no compromise to feel or refinement”. It uses the same electronic and mechanical chassis systems as the coupé but has a bespoke tune for the rear suspension, altered software for the adaptive dampers and a recalibrated ESP system. The three-mode chassis control system has also been tuned specifically for the model.

The Vantage loses 150 litres of boot capacity compared with the coupé, keeping an albeit respectable 200 litres, which Aston says is large enough for a full-size golf bag and its accessories.

The British manufacturer is also using the launch of the Vantage Roadster to introduce a range of new options across the Vantage range. Most notably, the seven-speed manual gearbox launched on the limited-run Vantage AMR is now available to order on the standard coupé. There’s also a new, more traditional ‘vane’ grille design option that can be ordered on both the coupé and the drop-top, sitting alongside the existing ‘hunter’ grille. New colour finishes and alloy wheel designs are also available.

Weakening demand for the Vantage, particularly in Europe, was cited as a major factor in a “disappointing year” for Aston in 2019. Mounting losses led to last week’s announcement of a consortium, led by billionaire businessman Lawrence Stroll, investing hundreds of millions of pounds in return for a 16.7% stake in the car maker.

Aston Martin registered 1029 examples of the Vantage across Europe last year. That represents less than half the number it registered in 2006 in the first full year of sale for the outgoing V8 Vantage. By contrast, Mercedes-AMG registered in excess of 5500 AMG GTs across Europe in the same period.

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Comments
6

Symanski

12 February 2020

Still a dog's dinner of a design.   Needs fixed, bumper to bumper.

 

Aston Martin have already blamed the Vantage for poor corporate results - it isn't selling!

 

To continue with the same failed design by Marek Reichman and expecting a different result is a sure sign of insanity.   Marek must go.

 

CEO Andy Palmer has to go too for failing to appoint a new designer to secure Aston's future.

 

lambo58

12 February 2020

Absolutely spot on, My 12 year old daughter is more talented.

Kamelo

12 February 2020

That interior design is a shambles.  Colours are terrible too. If this is best Aston can achieve, its no wonder it's going down the pan.

Sunshine

12 February 2020
A very anonymous looking vehicle, looks like a cross between a Mazda MX5 and a Jag F type. I really can’t remember when I last saw one of these on the road and I live in London. If Aston are fighting for survival (again) perhaps they should look at their own management boards decisions regarding their design direction. Their current cars lack visual drama and just seem plain versus older designs. This one looks has strange proportions and looks quite small on the road. Plus all the borrowed Merc tech inside and even the engines are from Mercedes. So which part exactly is an Aston?

Sunshine

12 February 2020

I'm really getting bored of manufacturers that keep making promises about how many future models are on the way and how many different ones there will be. TVR, Aston, Jag etc when all we see are failures and struggles to keep going. If the car buying public actually wanted one wouldn't the companies be thriving, not always on the brink of disaster? How many Autocar covers have we seen over the years with spurious headlines proclaiming new this or new that but it never really materialises! Reminds me of the New Years resolutions we all make, just the same hollow "I'll do better this time".

Peter Cavellini

12 February 2020

 And yet we buy 911's, a car re invented from the original way back in the 1960's, it's still moaned about, Porsche have turned out some Lemons,so, why go for the jugular of Aston Martin in such a vociferous way?

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