Aston Martin Vantage: the emotional choice

There are worse ways to escape the anxieties of wartime in Dubai than behind the wheel of a powerful sports car. When I took the Aston Martin Vantage for a weekend test drive, missiles were still occasionally trailing their way through Gulf skies.

To put it mildly, I needed a distraction, and the Vantage certainly provided one.

It arrived in “Cosmos Orange” – a shade that stops just short of dayglo, vivid enough to turn heads on King Salman bin Abdulaziz Road by the Madinat, without quite descending into vulgarity.

One of the thrills of driving a supercar through Dubai’s swanky Jumeirah is the amount of dazzled attention you get from pedestrians. On the “rubber-neck scale”, I’d give the Vantage a solid 7.5 out of 10. In a city where Ferraris and Lamborghinis are almost as commonplace as SUVs, that is no mean achievement.

It is, in many ways, Aston Martin’s most important car. It is the entry point to the marque – though the $200,000 price tag for the basic package is not cheap – the model that must convince a buyer to choose British character over German precision or Italian theatrics.

Under the bonnet sits a 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8, derived from Mercedes-AMG but extensively re-engineered by Aston Martin’s own team at Gaydon in genteel Warwickshire. The result is 656bhp of power, a 0-100 km/h time of 3.5 seconds, and a top speed of 325 km/h.

The numbers are impressive, but what’s more impressive is how they feel.

Plant your right foot on the floor and the Vantage doesn’t just accelerate – it erupts. The exhaust note is a snarling, throaty roar, the sort that makes other drivers instinctively check their mirrors.

The grip through corners is extraordinary, the rear-wheel drive balanced and communicative rather than treacherous, thanks to the precision of the Aston steering and suspension. This is how fast-car driving was before everything became electronically engineered.

Dubai offers few hairpin bends, but the road through the Hajar mountains to Fujairah – busier than ever now that the east coast is rising in strategic importance – would be a magnificent stage for this car.

Through those sweeping mountain passes, the Vantage would be in its element. Maybe next time, mileage limit allowing?

In the cockpit, you get a deeply satisfying sense of control. This is emphatically a two-seater sports car, compact and purposeful rather than a grand touring cruiser. This is definitely not a car for the school run, unless you wish to terrify the children.

The cabin is a very British blend of high tech, chrome, glass and Alcantara leather – elegantly finished without being ostentatious.

Crucially, Aston Martin largely resists the touchscreen tyranny that afflicts so many modern cars: the climate and audio controls are operated by proper physical dials and knobs, which means you can adjust the air-conditioning without taking your eyes off the road. It is a small detail, but a civilised one.

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There is a broader business story here. Aston Martin has spent much of its hundred-year history teetering on the edge of financial ruin, racing through owners and rescue packages with dispiriting regularity.

The latest chapter looks different. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund now holds a 20.5 percent stake in the company, making it one of Aston Martin’s largest shareholders, and Chinese auto group Geely is also on the share register.

Gulf capital, in alliance with Asian motor smarts, may be providing the stability that decades of British and US ownership failed to deliver. The marque that James Bond made famous could yet be saved by the Global South.

The Vantage is not, today, the most common supercar on Gulf roads. In a region where the default luxury choice tends towards the extravagantly ostentatious – Ferraris, McLarens, Bugattis – Aston Martin remains a comparative rarity.

That may change as PIF’s investment deepens and the brand’s Middle Eastern presence is encouraged. For now, it makes the Vantage something rarer: an individualist’s choice in a conformist market.

The Porsche 911 is the rational choice. The Aston Martin Vantage is the emotional one. At a time when the region is looking for something to take its mind off the grim realities of geopolitics, that feels exactly right.

Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist