We savour the new Aston Martin Vantage Roadster on twisting Austrian roads

Aston Martin’s ‘New Vantage’ certainly packs a punch in hard-top form. These days it’s unsurprising to find that driving characteristics and essential statistics can pretty much be cut and pasted between the open and closed versions of a sports car. The new open version is an improvement, aesthetically and dynamically, on the previous generation Vantage Roadster, which was hardly a slouch or lacking in the looks department.

When Aston first revealed this convertible Vantage back at the start of the year it didn’t exactly break new ground. Apart from the roof mechanism (quick and smooth) and the physical interface between the tonneau cover, rear deck and rear lights, it replicates the aggressive stylings of the Vantage model.

Although Aston Martin doesn't like to rely on software to make the differentiations between its variants, there are only a few components that are bespoke for Roadster. Tyres, brakes and dampers, for example, are all the same. Some obscure mountings are unique, but otherwise the chief difference is in the way the car feels and sounds with the top off.

In essence, a convertible is all about the vibe, a four-wheeled machine for transforming every journey into an event. Of course, there are times when you’d rather keep the lined and insulated hood up and block out the rest of the world, but for the purposes of our test drive it was top down all the way. Aston Martin’s press team has a knack for finding fine hotels adjacent to even better roads, and the twisting, mountain-hugging roads on the Austro-German border, close to Salzburg, provided the perfect backdrop, both visually and dynamically, for showcasing what this car is all about.

This magical combo of switchback hairpin bends, crisp mountain air, and glassy smooth (and largely empty) roads is unlikely to fall in your lap every day, unless you’re lucky enough to do a daily commute from the Rosewood Schloss Fuschl to somewhere equally alpine and picturesque. The Vantage Roadster is therefore an occasion car, sufficiently special to make any journey more interesting whilst still offering enough practicality and ease of use to make it a daily driver.

Like almost every luxury performance car maker you care to name, Aston Martin has spent the last couple of decades uprating power and increasing the sybaritic quotient of its products. Every company finds a way of eking out more power, year on year, and every company also has a department dedicated to the art of the uplift, upgrading the specification, introducing custom colours inside and out and generally increasing its profit margin whilst simultaneously enriching the customer’s sense of self.

Aston Martin’s division is called Q, a naming decision that has run the gamut of meaning from Bond-adjacent juvenilia to conspiracy-adjacent mania. Now that it’s firmly established now it might even outlast its namesakes. Customers certainly think so, and Q-specified variations are one of the company’s stated ways of turning red to black on the balance book. Described by one exec as the ‘busiest department in Aston Martin right now,’ Q is slated to expand still further as part of newish CEO Adrian Hallmark’s plans for the brand.

Before we actually get the chance to drive the Vantage Roadster, Aston runs through the stats, rolls a couple of videos and shows us some positioning graphs, a way of plotting where brands ‘sit’ on a couple of axes. Typically, one axis is labelled ‘performance’ and the other ‘luxury’, and each manufacturer has found a way of setting out this graph in their favour, their models surrounded by white space and perfectly positioned when compared to the clusters of rivals.

Aston Martin is no different. We’re told the company is in the process of 'punching into some white space as an ultra-luxury performance brand,' faster than a Rolls-Royce, yet more refined and not as raw as a Ferrari. In truth, there’s enough space for everyone and Aston Martin et al all operate in that rarefied space where customers rarely have the one car. Or the one house. Comparisons are a moot point.

Remarkably, the Vantage is Aston Martin’s most affordable model, a calculated blend of 'luxury and design and performance' that serves as a gateway to a cornucopia of automotive delights, from the DBX SUV through to the forthcoming Valhalla, a ‘hybrid supercar with hypercar performance.’

Twenty years ago, the first Vantage model of Aston Martin’s new era arrived, costing around £79,000. Vantage has managed to accelerate over and above the standard rate of inflation, but then so have the financial holdings of the global coterie of UHNWIs that keep companies like Aston Martin in business.

From Wallpaper*’s subjective, aesthetics-informed vantage point (pardon the pun), the new Roadster certainly has presence. But is it actually beautiful? We’d argue not. With its folded layers of carbon bodywork, painted or exposed, with cuts and ducts, vents and grilles, the car is wide-mouthed and a little bit louche-looking. The way the grille is extruded forward from the front wheel arches, with headlights that are set back from this structure, makes it look a little like one car is trying to escape from inside another.

In comparison, the interior fares better. It’s an undeniably special place to be. Aston has taken a couple of criticisms on board since we last drove a Vantage (badly) and added in a new shortcut button for the ADAS (Advanced driver-assistance system), allowing you to switch these off in just three simple steps, rather than hunt through menus to silence the nagging pings of doom.

And in a development that will surely be cheered by Aston’s 40- and 50-something customer base, there are now larger and more legible fonts on the main information screen. Sound comes from a Bowers & Wilkins Halo Audio system with 15 speakers, but we suspect that most spirited drivers will prefer to simply listen to the sound of the engine and exhaust.

If that sounds a bit regressive, it’s because it is. Over the past couple of years, the promised deluge of luxury performance EVs has slowed to a trickle, at least from the established brands. Political manoeuvrings, flip-flopping tariffs, fast-moving technology and a reactionary customer base has allowed newcomers to muscle in. When – not if – electrification comes, Aston Martin and its peers simply have to get it right first time.

For the time being, such novelties must remain in our imaginations. The Aston Martin Vantage Roadster is hardly Luddite in its design and implementation, but at its heart it’s all about the tradition of raw, visceral combustion power. This it delivers this with unrivalled aplomb.

Aston Martin Vantage Roadster, price tbc, AstonMartin.com, @AstonMartin