Aston Martin V8 Vantage

[ze_shark]

Essai accompagné avec démonstration préalable ?
Je n'arrive pas à mettre le doigt dessus, mais j'ai l'împression que j'ai un peu de la peine avec l'"esprit Aston", pour autant qu'il y en ait un.
Non pas que je me sente nécessairement en phase avec "l'esprit Ferrari", mais au moins je sais à quoi m'attendre.

Je me demande comme la politique de services au client sera adaptée, alors que la cible change radicalement. De la gentry aisée et un peu excentrique (les anciennes V8, DB7, Vanquish, DB9) à une audience plus large avec les pieds un peu plus sur terre, il va y avoir un saut.

[SebM]

Essai accompagné avec démonstration préalable ?

Eh oui... mais peut-etre que c'est different si tu arrive en Maranello...

[ze_shark]

Même pas.

Je m'étais pointé avec la 355 F1 à la présentation de la Vanquish au Country Club Geneva, et j'avais aussi eu droit à la démo en passager avec un pilote d'essai qui tenait absolument à m'expliquer le fonctionnement des palettes par le menu, avant de passer en conduite accompagnée, puis, chose exceptionelle, me laisser aller refaire un tour avec la sharkette en "solo".

Je devrais pas trop râiller Aston cependant, mes premiers essais de 355 chez Chevalley se firent aussi avec un chaperon, même chose chez Affolter avec la Gallardo, y a guère que chez Porsche et nos amis Ferrarilaisans que la confiance règne.

[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

[SebM]

Perfect StMoritzer !!! Thanks

[Shinigami]

stmoritzer: how did you convince the dealer to let you take it for a test drive? Have you tried a Vanquish, and if so, how does it compare?

[stmoritzer]

stmoritzer: how did you convince the dealer to let you take it for a test drive? Have you tried a Vanquish, and if so, how does it compare?

I didn't convince him, he invited me
or do you mean convince him to "lend" me the car? -> of course he came with me

I showed up several times at the dealer - after Geneva05, I got the invitation to the V8 presentation (yellow car ), I showed him some of the pics I did in the showroom and during the BCCM in St.Moritz ...
so for sure he knows that I'm not going to buy one very soon, but maybe in a few of years

no, no drive in the Vanquish (yet), currently they are very rare, the next one will be delivered to this dealer mid of 2006 if I'm right, they have a VanquishS in the showroom, but never saw the car outside, maybe it's not a testcar ?

[stmoritzer]

Perfect StMoritzer !!! Thanks

I just read you're impressions, they are very similar

[nan]

After reading your impressions, it seems to me that the AMV8 is one of the most gorgeous cars on the martket today!
I definitively love this car!

[Jack]

Globally I don't like... I love the front and the interior, but not the rear. I saw top-gear reportages, the handling seems impressive. In my opinion the main competitor is the 350Z, for more than half ot the price!

Aston is too much brand marketing, I'm not sure you can drive the AM V8 as a daily driver, ie more than 30'000 km a year. AM does not have any experience for a daily driver...

[ze_shark]

Ils finiront par y parvenir (même Maserati y arrive plus ou moins ), ils ont quand même le groupe Ford derrière, mais c'est clair que les premiers clients gros rouleurs vont essuyer les plâtres.
On ne passe pas de jouet pour excentrique à grande routière chevronnée en une génération de modèles.

[SebM]

I showed up several times at the dealer - after Geneva05, I got the invitation to the V8 presentation (yellow car ), I showed him some of the pics I did in the showroom and during the BCCM in St.Moritz ...
so for sure he knows that I'm not going to buy one very soon, but maybe in a few of years

C'est pareil pour moi

[SebM]

Perfect StMoritzer !!! Thanks

I just read you're impressions, they are very similar

Yessssssss

[Lapin Agile]

Perfect StMoritzer !!! Thanks

I just read you're impressions, they are very similar

you lucky b...rds
Great test reports anyway...

[_nicolas]

L'AMV8 nouvelle venue dans la Fast Fleet d'Evo a fait par deux fois le coup de sapin de Noël, tous témoins allumés et refus total de démarrer... La voiture est repartie à l'usine, suite au prochain numéro !