Vantage is Aston Martin’s most compact and agile model, and the engineering and design teams at Gaydon clearly didn’t want to compromise that with a heavy folding metal roof. Instead, the new Vantage Roadster will have a (well-insulated) fabric roof, which saves weight and looks almost as great up as it does when stowed away. Below the waistline, the Roadster retains all the design cues of the Coupe, including those distinctive side gills, menacing front splitter and muscular flanks. At the rear a single full-width band of LED lights follows the contours of the upflicked boot spoiler.
TECHNOLOGY
The Vantage Roadster includes keyless start/stop, tyre pressure monitoring, park assist and front and rear parking sensors. The infotainment system is controlled and viewed via a centrally mounted 8” LCD screen and includes Aston Martin Audio, Bluetooth® audio and phone streaming, iPod®, iPhone® and USB playback as well as an integrated satellite navigation system.
Safety
We expect the Roadster to feature similar safety features to its coupe sibling, including Dynamic Stability Control and Dynamic Torque Vectoring linked to an Electronic Differential (e-Diff). The Vantage also comes with helpful driver assistance systems to enhance your protection, such as Blind Spot Monitoring and Emergency Brake Assist – both designed to prevent collisions whilst out on the road.
Performance
Chassis strengthening to compensate for the loss of a metal roof will probably add around 100kg to the Roadster’s kerb weight, but that shouldn’t affect performance much. Like the Vantage Coupé, the Roadster will feature a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 that powers the rear wheels via a ZF 8-speed transmission. That engine’s 503bhp and 685Nm of torque is enough to catapult the Coupé from 0-62mph in just 3.6 seconds, so we can be confident the Roadster will comfortably undercut four seconds.
