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The last gunfighter | 2017 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S First Drive

Here's a deliciously subversive thought for you: Stats are ruining enthusiast cars. We use them to rank the latest models, critique them, and deify them. Sometimes the numbers happen to align with a bunch of intangibles, and the car becomes transcendent – like the Ferrari 458 Speciale, a very special thing indeed. There are cars with great numbers and very little charisma; I've driven many of them. And then, there are the number-based narratives that mislead us. For example, the hoopla around the Mazda MX-5's horsepower, or the continuing lack of a Toyobaru with a turbo – frustrating crosstalk about purist platforms better understood on track than on paper. The 2017 Aston Martin V12 Vantage S is flawed, old, and weak – so say the insidious numbers. A mechanical watch doesn't keep time as well as a quartz one, the numbers say. A tube amplifier produces an inferior sound, the numbers say. The way to fight back is to stop this slavish devotion to the stats and go wind the thing out on good roads in imperfect conditions, which is to my mind the ultimate test of a grand tourer's competence. Southern California was rocked this winter by wild weather – much of the Angeles Crest Highway that dances along the spine of the San Gabriel Mountains was closed due to heavy snow. So much for Plan A. Some roadside rerouting led to some promising roads, so I pointed the Aston into the curves. The V12 roar is a profound part of this car's appeal. Uphill and building steam, the Vantage is a symphony's brass section playing the sounds of wolves on the hunt. Downshifts yowl and snarl like a pack crashing through the underbrush in search of prey. Under deceleration, it sounds like lupine static, unearthly and resonant; wound out it's a frenzied whir. Every stab of throttle brings an immediate response: sound and acceleration in equal measure. If you have even the barest appreciation of joy, you can't stay out of the throttle. This is soulful, warm, analog – but merely honest rather than consciously retro. There's nothing here trying to simulate an authentic experience – it is an authentic experience. It's all right there, under the long and delicate hood – twelve cylinders displacing 5.9 liters. And inside the cabin, a seven-speed manual gearshift lever that moves through a dogleg pattern. This watch requires winding; it's a tactile experience that the quickest, most sophisticated dual-clutch automated manual can't touch.

Aston Martin Vantage vs. Mercedes-AMG GT C Review | Translating German into English

GROssBRITANNIEN — No car matches the new Aston Martin Vantage as closely as the Mercedes-AMG GT, the two sharing both their 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 and electrical architecture while competing for the same market niche. So, of the many challenges Aston Martin faced when developing it, ensuring that the Vantage had a unique identity must have weighed more heavily than any other. The added spice to this confrontation is the GT's status as halo model for AMG. Meanwhile, Aston Martin's brand identity, built on the sharp-suited machismo embodied by a certain big-screen spy, is a make-or-break issue for the company. The identity problem has fascinated me since the AMG deal was first announce in 2013. So exploring the Vantage on British roads with the GT literally filling the mirrors is a big deal. Now, finally, we have directly competing products with which to explore the theory. And there's much to like in both, not least of which is that common powerhouse of an engine. While they don't share a platform, both use the classic front-engine, rear-drive, transaxle layout, with traditional driving manners to match. Some quick number-crunching as an appetizer: The AMG GT C you see here has the dry-sumped M178 derivative of the V8, with 550 horsepower and 501 pound-feet of torque, driving the rear wheels through a transaxle-mounted, seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and fully active electronic locking differential. It's 179 inches long, weighs 3,748 pounds and will clear 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds en route to 197 mph. The Vantage has the wet-sumped M177 version of the same engine, as featured in countless AMGs and shared with the DB11 V8. It makes 503 hp, 505 lb-ft and drives the rear wheels through a transaxle-mounted, eight-speed automatic gearbox and fully active electronic locking differential. Sounding familiar? It's comparable in overall length but a couple of inches longer in wheelbase, and weighs pretty much the same as the GT C, give or take a few pounds. It hits 60 in 3.5 seconds and tops out at 195 mph. Both have adaptive dampers and a variety of driver modes, both are built from aluminum and both are at the sportier end of the GT spectrum. The two U.K.-market cars you see here cost just more than $180,000 with options. Pretty darned close, then. Numbers are one thing.

2020 Aston Martin Vantage Road Test | Old-school road trip in a new-school Aston

Our roads may be virtually empty, with Americans all cooped up and nowhere to go. But with jet planes and TSA lines looking iffy and icky for the foreseeable future, the great American road trip is poised to reclaim its preeminence in travel. To test that post-pandemic theory, in a purely theoretical way, I requisition a 2020 Aston Martin Vantage for a daytrip from New York to the Catskills. It’s the kind of high-character “import” sports car that once defined the breed, before corporate imperatives watered the character down. AstonÂ’s two-seater is nakedly beautiful, flawed-yet-fabulous, and expensive as hell. But if you drive the Vantage and donÂ’t fall head-over-loafers, IÂ’d accuse you of not caring for sports cars at all. ItÂ’s as alive and engaging as any sports car out there, a 509-horsepower firecracker that rewards skilled drivers – or dings them for mistakes – in defiance of the trend toward all-wheel-drive automatons. As for the Catskills, itÂ’s in the midst of its own explosive comeback. This rough-hewn mountain region, a convenient two hours north of Manhattan, was once the prime vacation destination of the Northeast, so popular in the late 19th century that a 1,200-room luxury hotel was required just to gaze at some waterfalls, with guests including U.S. presidents and Oscar Wilde. Through the 1950s and 60s, it continued to be the pipeline to nature for Jewish families and other northeast tourists. Their summer camps and sprawling “Borscht Belt” resorts and nightclubs mythologized in films like Dirty Dancing and now televisionÂ’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which has fetishized Catskills nostalgia to a truly marvelous degree. Then came airline travel, and affordable tickets to Miami Beach and other exotic warm-weather locales. Like a Palm Springs of the east, the Catskills fell into steep decline. The region became a punch line of corny kitsch. As with Palm Springs, fashion has come full circle: The Catskills and adjacent Hudson Valley are red-hot again, rediscovered by Brooklynites especially as a magical spot for affordable second homes, or permanent moves to open farm-to-table restaurants, curated antique shops and other bastions of rustic hip. The Vantage lures me from coronavirus lockdown like a movie idol waving outside my Brooklyn window, for a cannon-shot recon run to Woodstock.