Power, beauty, soul. Aston Martin owners have seen that phrase pop up in gauge clusters for years. The 2019 Vantage might be the best expression of that mantra.
Let’s just get this out of the way—the 2019 Vantage is beautiful. The huge grille presents a menacing face. The side grilles are aggressive and much more attractive than the DB11’s. But the kammback tail is the best angle, integrating a duck-bill spoiler and a vehicle-spanning taillight sliver.
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But the body is also light and strong, thanks to an aluminum construction based on the DB11. But over 70 percent of the content here is Vantage specific, and the car is a lot smaller than the DB11. At 176 inches long, a Porsche 911 is over an inch longer, while a DB11 is almost a foot longer.
The Vantage’s 4.0-liter, twin-turbocharged V-8 is also new… sort of. It comes from Mercedes-AMG and also serves in the new V-8-powered DB11. There’s 503 horsepower here and 505 pound-feet of torque. That’s less than the DB11, but that doesn’t matter on the stop watch—the Vantage is almost half a second faster to 60 and has a higher top speed.
The V-8 works alongside a rear-mounted eight-speed automatic transmission. Mounting the gearbox at the back contributes to a perfect 50/50 weight distribution. Adaptive dampers, a torque-vectoring electronic rear differential, and 20-inch Pirelli PZero tires help take advantage of that stat.
The 2019 Vantage is priced at just under $150,000. That’s $11,000 less than the more powerful, but more common Porsche 911 Turbo. But that doesn’t matter—Aston Martin has already sold out the Vantage’s first year of production.