The Aston Martin V12 Vantage

Aston Martin have built a reputation for producing cars that combine both luxury and performance. With the introduction of the Vantage they have decided to go a bit of a different way, this is a car that puts performance ahead of luxury. It will be interesting to see how well the car sells.

The Aston Martin V12 Vantage is one of the newer offerings from the company as they attempt to expand their product line. The market for this car is a little bit hard to understand since it is similar to the DB9 in both price and performance which does make it seem like it would take sales away from the company's top selling car. Nevertheless there is a bit of a performance increase over the DB9, we're just not sure that it is enough to make it worthwhile to add a whole new car to the lineup.

Although we are not convinced that the V12 Vantage offers enough of a performance upgrade over the DB9 to make it worth adding to the lineup we do have to say that we like the car. It is apparently an attempt to offer a car that is a little bit more sporty. The engine used in the Vantage is the same one that you would find in the DB9, a six liter V12 that produces just over five hundred horsepower. The Vantage also uses the same six speed transmission and the ceramic brakes that you would find on the DB9.

Where the Vantage differs from the DB9 is that it is a smaller and lighter car. This helps to increase performance as the top speed is one hundred an ninety miles per hour with a zero to sixty time of 4.2 seconds. In addition as part of the attempt to make the car a little bit sportier the suspension is set up to be little bit stiffer. This means that the ride is not as smooth as it is for other models but it does handle more like a sports car. That being said the ride is still pretty smooth compared to what you would find on a sports car.

The other big difference that you will notice between the Vantage and the DD9 is that the interior is not as luxurious. This is apparently part of the plan to make the car more like a sports car than a high performance luxury car like the rest of the cars that the company produces. This is a bit of a departure from the way that the company normally does things so it will be interesting to see how well the Vantage sells. It is clearly part of an attempt to attract new customers to the company, but they have to steal them away from the makers of some very good cars, like Ferrari.