Vantage (pronounced van-tij
or vahn-tij)
(1) A
position, condition, or place affording some advantage or a commanding view, expressed usually as "vantage point".
(2) An
advantage or superiority (obsolete except when used by Aston-Martin).
(3) In
lawn tennis, short for advantage (obsolete except for a few tennis snobs).
1250-1300:
Middle English from Anglo-French, by apheresis from the Old French avantage (advantage or profit).
The phrase vantage point first noted in 1865, a variation of the earlier
vantage ground from circa 1610. The
early English alternative vauntage,
soon faded from use and the derived forms, vantages
(third-person singular simple present) vantaging
(present participle) and vantaged (simple
past and past participle) are now wholly obsolete.
DB2 Vantage DHC
The
word Vantage was first used by Aston Martin in 1950 on the DB2. The title indicated an uprated engine
specification: a pair of larger carburetors and a higher compression ratio which
added 20bhp to the standard DB2’s 105. Almost
250 were built with both saloon (AM’s term for a two door coupé) and drophead
coupé (DHC, the term then often used by English manufacturers to refer to
formal convertibles) coachwork.
DB4 Vantage Saloon
Strangely,
although the Vantage moniker caught on with aficionados, it wouldn’t be again
used by the factory for almost a decade.
The DB4 Vantage was released with the Series IV cars in 1961, now with triple
carburetors and a higher compression ratio, the cylinder head was also revised
with bigger valves, the package yielding 266bhp, some ten per cent more than a
standard DB4. The Vantage this time was visibly
distinct as well as technically upgraded, gaining the faired-in headlights and bright aluminum trim from the earlier DB4 GT.
DB5 Vantage Saloon
While
mechanically almost identical to the Series IV, the more spacious Series V
Vantage of 1962, the last in the DB4 line, was stylistically different, being
essentially a prototype for the upcoming DB5.
The two are virtually indistinguishable; indeed one Series V DB4 Vantage
was used alongside a DB5 in the filming of the James Bond film Goldfinger. Of the 141 built, the rarest and most
desirable were the half-dozen with the optional DB4 GT engine.
DB5 Vantage DHC
The
Vantage option remained on the books when the DB5 was released in 1965. Now with triple Weber carburetors, the factory
rated the Vantage at 325bhp, a jump of 40 over the standard engine and only 68 of
the 887 saloons were built to the Vantage specification. More rare still was the DB5 Vantage convertible,
a mere eight of the 123 built although, over the decades, a great many of both
have be upgraded to the Vantage standard.
DB6 Vantage Saloon
Introduced
in 1965 and made in two series, the now Kham-tailed DB6 remained in production
until 1970. The DB6 Vantage was
mechanically identical to its predecessor but there were detail changes. Retained was the Vantage badge introduced
with the DB5, but the nomenclature was now added as a discreet script on the
side strakes and much attention was devoted to improving passenger comfort. At this point, while coupés continued to be labelled
saloons, convertibles were now styled Volantes (a derivation of the Italian
word for "flying"). Spread
between two series, out of a total DB6 production of 1739, 405 Saloons and 42
Vantage Volantes were built
DBS Vantage Saloon
By the
mid 1960s, the market in which Aston Martin competed, although larger, was more
contested than even a decade earlier. As
early as 1961, Jaguar’s E-Type had, at a fraction of the cost, matched the DBs
in style and performance, if not quality and their V12 project was known to be
well-advanced. The Italian thoroughbreds,
Ferrari, Maserati and Lamboghini, all with eight and twelve cylinder engines,
were setting new standards and there was now an array of trans-Atlantic hybrids
which combined exquisite European coachwork with cheap, effortless and reliable
American V8 power. Aston Martin’s six
cylinder engine, Vantage tweaked or not, was starting to look technologically bankrupt. Accordingly, the factory developed both a new
car, the DBS, and their own V8. For a
variety of reasons, the V8 wasn’t ready by the time the DBS, a typical Aston
Martin mix of traditional and modern, was released in 1967 so the familiar six,
again available in Standard or Vantage form was carried over from the DB6
although, to counter increased weight, the Vantage version boasted revised
camshafts.
Vantage Saloon
The DBS
and DB6 were produced in parallel until 1970, the last few DB6s built after the
DBS V8’s release the previous year. The
last of the six cylinder DBSs came in a run of seventy named simply Vantage,
all with the revised twin-headlight coachwork introduced in 1972 which would
serve the line essentially unchanged until 1989. Historically, the final seventy were then a
unique anomaly, the first time a Vantage was not the most but the least potent
offering.
V8 Vantage Volante
That historical quirk was certainly rectified after the Vantage’s half-decade hiatus, during which the first oil crisis of the early 1970s had transformed the market. Most of the trans-Atlantic hybrids had been driven extinct, Jaguar had moved in a different direction, Mercedes-Benz had chosen not to compete, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Maserati all had their own brushes with bankruptcy, Porsche were moving up-market to become a competitor and governments were imposing more and more regulations. The 1977 Aston Martin Vantage took a different approach to the mid-engined Italian or turbo-charged German opposition. Although there was much attention to aerodynamics and chassis dynamics, mostly it was about simple brute force, the additional power over the standard V8 gained by the traditional methods used in Vantages past and it proved effective, able to run with the Lamborghini Countach, the Ferrari BB and even the Porsche 911 Turbo of the time. This time, the factory didn’t release a claimed power output, describing it instead as “adequate”.
V8 Vantage Zagato Saloon
The Vantage, as both saloon and volante, remained in production until 1989 and served as the basis of the shorter, radical, and very rare, V8 Vantage Zagato saloon and volante.
Virage Vantage V550 Saloon
High-priced
brute force remained a gap in the market and Aston Martin continued its
commitment with a Virage-based supercharged Vantage in 1993 which, by 1998, was
running twin superchargers, its 600bhp making it the most powerful production
powerplant in the world, making the Vantage capable of close to 200 mph (320
km/h); Virage production ended in 2000.
DB7 Vantage Saloon
The DB7,
first shown at the Geneva Motor Show in 1999, became the next Vantage and now
under Ford’s ownership, it used a 5.9 litre V12 engine developed in co-operation
with Cosworth Technology. It was the
first time a Vantage wasn’t a development of the standard engine, the straight
six in the DB7 being a different configuration and remarkably, by historic
standards, the DB7 Vantage verged on mass-production: over four-thousand built
over a four and a half year life which ended in 2003.
VH V8 Vantage Saloon
Ford
were pleased by the sales and in 2003, again at the Geneva Motor Show, unveiled on
the VH platform the AMV8 Vantage Concept, so well-received the order books were
bulging by the time the production version was released in 2005. It proved to be the most successful car in
Aston Martin’s history and this time it really was mass-produced, necessitating
construction of a second production line; eventually more than fifteen
thousand would leave the factory. Less
brute force than before, the new V8 Vantage relied on technology to exceed the
performance of most of its predecessors. For those attracted by more performance or
more exclusivity, in 2009, Aston Martin unveiled the V12 Vantage, weighing little
more than its V8 sibling but boasting an additional hundred-odd horsepower and able
to reach 190 mph (305 km/h). In 2012,
the V12 Vantage Zagato was added to the books.
V12 Vantage S
However,
after the GFC (Global Financial Crisis), the expansion of the money supply
(essentially governments giving cash to the rich) at the upper end of the
market meant there was increasing taste for conspicuous consumption. Like other manufacturers anxious to meet
demand with supply, Aston Martin responded with a bespoke programme, offering
degrees of customisation to the point of one-off creations but also, new
product lines, hence the 2013 V12 Vantage S.
It joined the new generation of machines now able routinely to attain
the 200mph (320 km/h) speeds first promised by the Italians in the early 1970s
but not realised because of the means available at the time to defeat the formidable
opposition of physics. At a tested
205mph (330 km/h), the terminal velocity of the V12 Vantage S made it the
fastest Aston Martin ever and, in a nicely nostalgic touch, in 2016, even a manual
gearbox was offered.
Vantage Roadster
The
times are changing and there is an end-of-an-era feel to the latest
Vantage. Now with a Mercedes-Benz-AMG
four litre V8, it doesn’t quite match the top-end performance of the V12 but is said to
be a more practical day-to-day proposition to own while being less
environmentally thuggish. These are
relative terms and while today’s Vantage is not quite how things used to be
done, it’s unlikely there’ll ever be another big V12. Those who can may be advised to enjoy it
while it’s here.
Aston
Martin Vantage Production Numbers
DB2
Vantage: 248 saloon and DHC
DB4
Vantage: 135 (plus 6 DB4 GT Vantage)
DB5
Vantage: 68 saloon (plus 8 DHC)
DB6
Vantage: 335 saloon (plus 29 Volante)
DB6 Vantage
MkII: 70 saloon (plus 13 Volante)
DBS Vantage:290
saloon
Vantage
70 saloon
V8
Vantage: 372 saloon (plus 194 Vantage Volante)
V8
Vantage Zagato: 52 saloon (plus 8 Vantage Volante)
Vantage/V8
Vantage: 273 saloon (plus 40 specials)
DB7 V12
Vantage: 2,086 coupe (plus 2,056 Volante)
V8
Vantage (VH): 15,458 coupe (plus 6,231 Roadster)
V12
Vantage: 2,957 (all types including V12 Vantage S)