New 2020 Aston Martin Vantage Roadster blasts in ahead of Geneva
The new convertible Aston Martin Vantage Roadster arrives with 503bhp and a £126,950 price tag
Aston Martin has extended the Vantage line-up with a convertible version. The new Vantage Roadster, which joins the regular coupé and the hardcore AMR in the range, arrives as a rival to the Porsche 911 Cabriolet and will make its full debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March.
The Roadster is 60kg heavier than the coupé due to its additional strengthening measures, but performance takes only a very minor hit; 0-62mph now takes 3.8 seconds – which is 0.2 seconds slower than the coupé – while Aston claims that the Roadster has a top speed of 190mph.
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The folding roof mechanism features a Z-shaped structure, and it’s one of the fastest systems on the market. Aston says it takes just seven seconds to stow the fabric hood away in a compartment ahead of the boot, which shrinks in size to 200 litres. The firm claims it’s the fastest automatic convertible roof of any car on sale right now.
Under the bonnet, the Roadster uses the same Mercedes-AMG-sourced 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 as the coupé, which develops 503bhp and 685Nm of torque.
It sends power to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox, which features paddle-shifters for manual control.
The coupé’s electronic rear differential is carried over, as are adaptive damping and dynamic torque vectoring, while the Roadster gets a bespoke chassis set-up to compensate for the loss of the roof.
Drive modes remain three fold, with Sport, Sport+ and Track settings ready at the fingertips, but Aston’s engineers have tuned them specifically for the Roadster.
The introduction of the Vantage Roadster coincides with the 70th anniversary of the car’s nameplate. To that end, it’s now possible to specify both versions of the Vantage with a ‘vane’-style grille featuring horizontal chrome slats, as seen on other Vantage models over the decades. A fresh range of alloy wheel designs has been added to the options list, while new paint finishes are available, too.
Elsewhere, the seven-speed manual gearbox previously offered only in the limited-edition Vantage AMR is now available in the regular coupé, but is unavailable in the new Roadster for now.
Deliveries of the Vantage Roadster begin in the summer, with the new car on sale now priced from £126,950, commanding a £12,100 premium over the hard-top Vantage.
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