AM V8 Vantage - voyage d'essai !

[stmoritzer]

The text is in english, since I posted my impressions on another forum aswell. I hope you don't mind.
I really have to win the Euromillions!


A+
David


BEFORE



AFTER





arriving with my Seat, the V8 was already parked infront of the showroom... what a beautiful car


many of you will remember, that I liked the yellow one from Geneva05 very much ("young"-"sportif"- "Lambo-rival")


but IMO this darkblue color is just perfect to this car with the tan-brown- leather inside :drool:
(thanks Wutputt for the pic )

the design of the car is anyway to die for, the shape, the rims, the head-n-rear light ... :love:
a combination of elegance and racing


Cockpit

taken from AM homepage, go to http://www.astonmartin.com/thegallery/brochures for all details

the interiour is, as you can expect from AM, top quality; simple, but clear intruments, awesome illumination of the instruments, a quite big middle part with cd-player, Nav.system, as you can see in the picture above, and of course, the START ENGINE button


Sitting in the car, one has a good overview, the seat are sportif tight. The view out of the windows is surprisingly good, you have a very good field of view towards the side, the back-side windows gives you enough view to see any car next to you. Looking thru the middle-mirror, you see enough what's going on behind you.
But you don't see the front end or the back end of the car, so parking could be tricky if not used to the dimensions of the car -
but who cares about parking this car


let's go !!
the dealer told me that they openend the valve-flaps in the exhaust to have a proper sound also from low revs on
Since the testdrive was on normal road (f.king Zürich has installed houndreds of radars in the city -arrrrg- -> 50km/h in town, 120km/h on the highway was the max. speed :bah:) no high acceleration, high revs

So, starting the engine was cool but as the whole car, some british understatement is in it ( compared to the marvellous start-up of a Gallardo SE or Murci), but one is aware of the power...
btw, the Power-Beauty-Soul on the display appeared -> see TopGear episode, where JC complained about

first, we drove out of the city, stop-n-go traffic.
The car is very easy to drive in the city traffic, it's a 6gear manual car btw, the gears are very smooth, no problem with the clutch
because of the cold weather, the gearchange was a little tricky at the beginning, but changing from 1 into 4th gear by mistake at a low speed was fine

from this point of view, the V8 is an all-day car for sure! one can cruise at low revs, the seats are confortable, in-style-cruising


then, we followed a curved road, where suddenly, we passed a Mercedes SLR , probabely coming back from a testdrive, because their showroom is very close. It's the first one I saw drivign in the while btw the color was standard, silver-grey (to answer vakpemil's question in the thread)

Driving up this road, I was able to push the car a little more
Now, the "racing" attitude appears :love:

The set-up of the car is the best I've driven so far, the steering is direct, agile, the suspension is "hard" enough to let you feel the road. You can take the corner very precise while you hear the beautiful sound of the V8 engine.
I haven't driven many sportscars, but the handling of the V8 is impressive , IMO they did a good job with midmounted front engine, the transaxle gearbox and the stiff Aluminium body
I didn't even came near the full capacity of the car, it's pure pleasure to drive in the open road with this car

compared to the Lambos, which hamlet and I drove in Frankfurt:
well, the lambos are pure sportscar, every thing (from the start-up) to the alcantara-steering wheel) can be described: flat, wide, aggressive, powerful, loud - like a bull
of course, the Lambos have more power (520hp for the SE, 580hp for the Murci) than the V8 with still 380hp, but also the rest of the car is sports-oriented. Well,the Gallardo can be seen as an allday car, the Murci not.

The V8Vantage however is both, and it's not a all a bad compromise.
IMO the engineers managed to built a car which can be driven all day and for many hundreds of miles, but still it's a proper sportscar!
I engine could be stronger, most probabely there will be a more powerful version in the future...
The V8Vantage can be discribed: stylish, agile, exclusiv, understatement



... very soon, the next village arrived and via the highway we drove back to where we started.
I had the intention to stop somewhere to shoot a sereis of pictures, but at the beginning I was focused on the driving and towards the end, we drove on the highway

So the only pics I have can be seen below, IMO this car is a beauty :love:, the color suits perfect...

all I need is 170k CHF :drool:





Enjoy the picture

before,


after,



the car





details

[hamlet]

not bad. Well done man!! I am now looking forward for the live detailed feedback See you on Monday...

[SebM]

Coooool... Thanks !!! But you can add it on the initial topic
http://www.asphalte.ch/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=115

[stmoritzer]

copied the content to the AM V8 thread

[TT]

Lucky!

To drive such a car is such a special moment! Even with the dealer with you, I am sure you savoured every moment! Thanks for sharing!

[pierre]

Looks like you enjoyed it!

--p

[dahu]

BTW ( ) la semaine dernière avec la RS4 je suis passé par la Vallée de Joux, et j'en ai vu une avec plaques étrangères, en train de faire le plein aux Bioux.... Belle machine incontestablement dans une ambiance différente d'un salon....