Overview

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage is a high-performance sports car manufactured by the British automaker Aston Martin. The V8 Vantage was introduced in 1977 and production ended in 1989. Although the Vantage name has been used on a number of high-performance versions of Aston Martin cars, the Aston Martin V8 Vantage was considered to be a separate model. At its introduction the V8 Vantage was considered to be Britain’s First Supercar because the car could reach a maximum speed of 170 mph.

Variants

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage was different from the Aston Martin V8 mechanically and had distinctive design features that set the car apart. The most notable distinctive features were the closed off bulge, rather than an open scoop on the normal V8, a closed off grille area with twin driving lights and a spoiler.

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage used a different engine from the normal V8. It was still a 5.3-Liter V8 but with bigger inlet valves, new cam profiles with increased overlap on the induction side and a redesigned inlet manifold. The most important change to the engine was the move from downdraught Weber twin choke carburettors to four massive downdraught twin choke Weber carburettors.

The 5.3-Liter Vantage V8 engine was producing 390 horsepower and 406 lb-ft of torque and was mated only to a five speed manual transmission. The Aston Martin V8 Vantage accelerated from 0 – 60 mph in 5.3 seconds and ran the quarter mile in just 13 seconds. The maximum speed recorded in performance test was 171 mph and fuel consumption was 11 mpg.

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage was also fitted with a 25 gallon fuel tank instead of the normal 21 gallon fuel tank. The suspension design was unchanged, with unequal length wishbones, ball-jointed king pins, co-axial coil springs and shock-absorbers and an anti-roll bar at the front, and that substantial De Dion located rear end, located by parallel trailing links and a Watts linkage and suspended by coil springs and, from 1978, telescopic Konis instead of Armstrong lever shock-absorbers. The all-disc brakes were outboard at the front, inboard at the rear.

The interior of the car was all leather but many claimed that it was old-fashioned even for 1977. Connolly leather was applied not only to the luxurious seats, but also the door trims, centre console, rear quarter panels and even the screen pillars. Wilton carpets covered the floor and a smooth, cloth headlining replaced the ribbed lining of earlier V8's. The doors carried substantial leather-trimmed arm-rests, the driver's containing a remote lock for the passenger door.

Additional Information

The heart of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, meaning the engine, was built at a small factory in Newport. Each engine was hand built by one mad, this personal touch being shown on the offside cam cover of the engine where a little brass plate announced who had built the engine.